Subject: Re: Reply-To:

From: Barry Landy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 11:39:37 BST

We had correspondence recently about the lack of Reply-To: in Pine. One 
of my users, missing the feature, has pointed us to the relevant text in 
RFC-822, which would seem to end the debate. If the RFC says it should be 
there, then the feature ought to be provided, and the only variable left 
is a decision about priorities.

     4.4.3.  REPLY-TO / RESENT-REPLY-TO                               
                                                                      
        This field provides a general  mechanism  for  indicating  any
        mailbox(es)  to which responses are to be sent.  Three typical
        uses for this feature can  be  distinguished.   In  the  first
        case,  the  author(s) may not have regular machine-based mail-
        boxes and therefore wish(es) to indicate an alternate  machine
        address.   In  the  second case, an author may wish additional
        persons to be made aware of, or responsible for,  replies.   A
        somewhat  different  use  may be of some help to "text message
        teleconferencing" groups equipped with automatic  distribution
        services:   include the address of that service in the "Reply-
        To" field of all messages  submitted  to  the  teleconference;
        then  participants  can  "reply"  to conference submissions to
        guarantee the correct distribution of any submission of  their
        own.                                                          
                                                                      
        Note:  The "Return-Path" field is added by the mail  transport
               service,  at the time of final deliver.  It is intended
               to identify a path back to the orginator  of  the  mes-
               sage.   The  "Reply-To"  field  is added by the message
               originator and is intended to direct replies.          

=======================================================================
Barry Landy, Head of Systems and Development,
University of Cambridge Computing Service
[email-masked]      0223-334713   +44-223-334713

---

From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 09:25:27 -0700 (PDT)

Barry,
In general I tend to think of RFC822 descriptions as "if you are going to 
have field xyz, this is how it should be done."  Example: there is no
requirement that every message have a CC: field; 822 specifies what they 
should look like if they do exist.

However, this debate is academic: as we've said before, "Reply-To:" is 
definitely coming.  I can't say exactly when yet, but "pretty soon"...

-teg