Subject: Status of the drafts?

From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 16:49:28 -0800

It's been two months since the Chicago meeting and a month since the
posting of the minutes of the meeting. There has been a small amount of
discussion of changes to the two drafts, but not much. What is the status
of the drafts? Are we ready for last calls yet?

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

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From: Norbert Bollow <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:38:30 +0100

> of the drafts? Are we ready for last calls yet?

I still think it would be good to clarify in what cases it is
permissible to use a null return-path. (This was on the agenda of the
Chicago meeting, but is seems that it did not get discussed due to time
constraints.)

-- Norbert.

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From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 16:40:23 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

> Chicago meeting, but is seems that it did not get discussed due to time

The 821bis editor would appreciate this clarification, 
especially if it can be done quickly and with a minimum of 
flaming.

   john

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From: Norbert Bollow <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 17:01:41 +0100

> especially if it can be done quickly and with a minimum of 

How about something like this?

: ?.? Messages with a null reverse-path
: 
: There are several types of notification messages which are required by
: the relevant standards to be sent with a null reverse path, namely
: non-delivery notifications as discussed in section ##3.7, other kinds
: of Delivery Status Notifications (DSNs, see [RFC 1894]) and also
: Message Disposition Notifications (MDNs, see [RFC 2298]). All of these
: kinds of messages are notifications about a previous message, and they
: are sent to the reverse-path of the previous mail message. (If the
: delivery of such a notification message fails, that usually indicates
: a problem with the mail system of the host to which the notification
: message is addressed. For this reason, at some hosts the MTA is set up
: to forward such failed notification messages to someone who is able to
: fix problems with the mail system, e.g. via the postmaster alias.)
:
: All other types of messages (i.e. any message which is not required by
: a standards-track RFC to have a null reverse-path) SHOULD be sent with
: with a valid, non-null reverse-path.
:
: Implementors of e-mail robots should be careful to make sure that the
: various kinds of messages with null reverse-path are handled correctly,
: in particular e-mail robots SHOULD NOT reply to messages with null 
: reverse-path. 

-- NB.