Tony Finch wrote:
On Thu, 13 Dec 2007, Dave Crocker wrote:
While I think the proposed text gets across the distinction folks are seeking,
I'm concerned that it leads to a belief that one or the other type of activity
is not a list. My own view is that they are both lists, but the former is a
list that restricts itself sufficiently to qualify as emulating an MTA. In
particular, both have a delivery of the original message and a posting of a
new one.
I disagree. The distinction between aliases and lists is useful and should
not be muddied.
I am suspecting that there are three different functions here, not two.
1. I believe the 'alias' function refers to a RCPT-TO multi-cast expansion
and relaying mechanism that takes place during address resolution within the
delivery process, but before delivery takes place.
Then there is mailing list function which accepts delivery to the named list's
address, creates a new message with a new set of addressees and posts the new
message.
2a. Except that the mailing list function can be distinguished by the degree
to which the new message is the same as the original message. When it is
essentially identical, except for the RCPT-TO list and some additional
handling fields, it is very close to the alias mechanism, but it isn't the
same. Still it is seeking to emulate an MTA (doing multicast.)
2b. Then there are mailing lists that do some amount of additional violence
to the message, possibly quite a bit.
To stress: The first and second are very similar, but they are not the same
and I think the differences are important.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net