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Re: References, In-Reply-To, and Resent-Message-ID: responses and message fragmentation/reassembly

2004-09-07 07:58:07

On 2004-09-06 19:51, Russ Allbery wrote:

Jacob Palme <jpalme(_at_)dsv(_dot_)su(_dot_)se> writes:

If you resend a message as a body part with an added comment, this is
rather similar to writing a reply to that message, and in the case of a
reply, both are included in References.

I would say that if you resend a message with an added comment, you're not
resending, you're forwarding, and therefore you would not include Resent-*
headers and that case would be handled very differently.

On the other hand I feel it's very reasonable to use
References/In-Reply-To for forwarded messages as well.
It should be highly encouraged by the RFC.

Concerning resent messages: I'm not very sure whether the In-Reply-To
should contain the original or the Resent ID. I could imagine both
situations as reasonable:

- resending a message for someone who lost the original:

As soon as he will reply to a resent message, while others (e.g. on a
mailing list) have the original one only, their thread is slightly broken.
Thus it's required that References contain at least

References: <former IDs> <original message-id> <resent-id>

In this situation here I'd vote more for the original message id within
the references.


- resending the message for someone else:

he may reply to this resent message. But again, if I resent a message to
someone else (which is named as 'bounce' in my mail tool) I won't keep a
copy of this resent message in my own box. Thus the Resent ID is not even
available here

- forwarding

... is a completely different story, creating a new message-id of its own.


I just checked RFC2822 for the Resent details:

   "The purpose of using resent fields is to have the message appear to
   the final recipient as if it were sent directly by the original sender,
   with all of the original fields remaining the same."

As I understand this, it's a rather strong argument to use the original
message-id for the In-Reply-To.

   '"Reply-To:", "Message-ID:", and other fields.  The resent fields are
   only informational and MUST NOT be used in the normal processing of
   replies.'

So you want to change this? Otherwise you MUST NOT use the
Resent-Message-ID for In-Reply-To!?

Kind regards
Martin