Keith Moore wrote:
D. J. Bernstein wrote:
Specifically: A huge number of today's messages have a suboptimal
reply address in From, the desired reply address in Reply-To,
As suggested by Keith, and as discussed in my earlier message, the
proposal under discussion is [...]
I wasn't aware that there was any single proposal under discussion. I'm
certainly not ready to settle on a single proposal.
The scenario to which DJB responded what under discussion. That
incorporated your reply-to-author via the From field mailbox(es)
suggestion. That does not preclude other proposal, but that is
what was being discussed in the list messages preceding this one
in this thread.
And FWIW, I'm in agreement with the view that Reply-To is too messed up
to be salvaged.
(once again) What are the specific issues that you have in mind?
Even though the current behavior is very sub-optimal,
it is still occasionally useful and there are a lot of people who expect
it to work the way it does now.
Use of From (ignoring Reply-To when present), as you have
suggested is a change to the standard response protocols.
A change which is already supported to some extent in many
UAs (those that provide a mechanism to respond to the From
field mailboxes while ignoring Reply-To). A change which,
however, does not require massive changes to essentially
all UAs, plus changes to many MTAs. Use of
Reply-TO? Reply-To : From as a default response target is
in fact entirely compatible with "the way it does [work]
now". The sole changes are (1) added support for narrow
responses to the From field mailboxes for UAs which do not
already have such a mechanism, and (2) wide responses
possibly including From even when Reply-To is present.