Keith Moore <moore(_at_)network-heretics(_dot_)com> writes:
yes, it's advisory in theory. but in practice Expires in netnews means
"delete the message on or before this date" for very close to 100% of
the servers out there - precisely because in netnews the assumption is
that all messages will expire after a relatively short time anyway.
The part after the dash doesn't imply the part before the dash, and I
think you're underestimating the number of servers that ignore Expires or
set minimum expiration times that disable its effect.
the definitions as stated are very similar, but the definitions have to
be evaluated within their usage contexts - and the two contexts are very
different. basically the two contexts are so different that to use
Expires in email would likely result in confusing, surprising, and
undesirable behavior in email.
Okay. It appears we simply have different opinions after looking at the
same data. I will just register my complete disagreement with the above
paragraph for the record of the discussion.
--
Russ Allbery (rra(_at_)stanford(_dot_)edu)
<http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>