--On Monday, 30 April, 2007 11:10 -0400 "David F. Skoll"
<dfs(_at_)roaringpenguin(_dot_)com> wrote:
I think it should read something like this:
In either case, a formal handoff of responsibility for
the message occurs: the protocol requires that a server
MUST accept responsibility for either delivering a
message or properly reporting the failure to do so.
A proper failure report SHOULD consist of a notification sent
to the Return-Path of the original message. Where this is not
possible (because of a blank Return-Path) or not desirable
(because the Return-Path is untrusted for local policy
reasons), the server MUST record enough information for a
human operator to reconstruct the nature of the delivery
failure, the original Return-Path and the addresses of the
original recipients.
I fear, though, that may exceed the charter as you say.
Without commenting on whether or not this is the best approach,
or even a good idea, one could probably replace the strong
clause starting with ", the server MUST..." with some words that
non-normatively advised that behavior. There are two problems
with the strong version: one is that it would be a new
requirement, as you suggest and the second is that we have
carefully avoided imposing requirements on post-delivery (or
post-acceptance) behavior such as logging because such behavior
is not observable on the wire.
john