Re: Mandatory From field, anonymity, and hacks

Keith Moore wrote:
> well, this not being a group with a charter or a chair, I'm not sure who
> determines what is a proposal (vs. a half-baked idea), and what is or is
> not on the table.  
OK, it's not a *formal* proposal in the context of a WG, but it is a
proposal nevertheless (and if you think it's a half-baked idea, you're
welcome to present that opinion with justification).  A successor to
RFC 2822 is expected and in progress, and this seems to be the
appropriate forum to publicly discuss issues that might be worth
considering for that successor.

By the way, another point in favor of making From optional is that
it provides message originators a way to avoid being bombarded by
poorly designed software which is inappropriately configured by
ill-informed users, e.g.:

--------------------
[...]
Received: by nt3.pts.se with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2657.72)
        id <HQDQ56NC>; Thu, 12 Aug 2004 14:37:59 +0200
Message-ID: <6913523FE9720C4A8778E1BB51755D2F24A106(_at_)nt3(_dot_)pts(_dot_)se>
From: Joakim(_dot_)Stralmark(_at_)pts(_dot_)se
To: blilly(_at_)erols(_dot_)com
Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Fr=E5nvaro=2C_autosvar=3ALast_Call=3A_=27The_AP?=
        =?ISO-8859-1?Q?PLICATION/MBOX_Media-Type=27_to_Proposed_Standard?=
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 14:37:59 +0200
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2657.72)
Content-Type: text/plain;
        charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

=C4r p=E5 semster till 30/7 - d=E4refter p=E5 IETF-m=F6te till 6/8 och =
sedan semseter
igen till 20/8.

=C5ter/will be back 23 of August.

Joakim Str=E5lmark
---------------------

in response to a message where none of sender envelope, Sender, or
Reply-To pointed to the address to which the above "vacation"-like
message (in response to a mailing list message!) was sent.  The
message header From field should *never* be used for such messages
(moreover, such messages should *never* be sent in response to
mailing list messages received by a subscribed list recipient),
and omitting a From field permits message authors to avoid being
pestered by such nonsense.