Re: lynx-dev your mail

[Foteos Macrides]

Al Gilman <address@hidden> wrote:
>to follow up on what Foteos Macrides said:
>
>>   (What you really want is a way to set the Reply-to header, so
>> you could make clear what account you are using to send the
>> mail, but still have replies go to another account, without
>> need to set global forwarding.)
>
>The little sendmail stub will not block this.  If the file named
>in -F starts with headers, they are included as headers in the
>outbound mail.  In fact, I am not sure which sendmail (or both)
>force a whitespace line between stuff that is credibly headers
>and stuff that is patently not headers.  Something is doing that.

        I put that in parentheses because it did not refer to
the sendmail stub, per se.  The LYMail.c functions are using
the Personal Address value to set a default From header value,
(which is redundant with the -f switch for the stub) and not
a Reply-to header value.  The user can modify the default,
and the file From header value can end up different from the
-f value.  Also, the phrasiology of the LYMail.c prompt for a
From header implies a Reply-to header.

        I thought the problem with the CC was specific to
Unix.  At least, that's what Laura's patch implies.


>I haven't tried the step of creating sendmail.bat that wraps 
>sendmail.exe and prepends Reply-To: etc. headers to the file
>that Lynx emits.

        That issue should be dealt with for all platforms in
the LYMail.c functions.


>>      I think these issues are important to understand, and
>> document (when more clearly understood :), because the DOS/WIN/NT
>> ports create a situation in which all ISPs can offer Lynx as a
>> downloadable package which their customers can use on their own
>> PCs, homologously to what is being done for GUIs.  For the most
>> part, "general users" have been dependent on access to shell
>> accounts which support a Lynx image, often obsolete, and without
>> adequate motivation for the ISPs to upgrade it themselves.  Those
>> could instead offer links to an updated Lynx package which installs
>> or reinstalls itself on the customers' PCs, but that still requires
>> confidence on the part of the ISPs that they're not offering links
>> and an implied endorsement for something which might come back to
>> haunt them in one way or another.
>
>We need to know these answers.  We don't want to send them any
>recommendations that blow up in their faces.  OTOH they are 
>commonly governed by "what the market will bear" and Netscape
>would seem to allow about the same level of header dissimulation
>as does this little stub.

        No one has a crystal ball, but I'm operating on the
expectation that MicroSoft will cope with the monopoly criticisms
and legal actions, and has already induced ISPs to skew their
services toward MicroSoft products (via "partnership" and "channel"
agreements).  That's why I'm spending so much time becoming better
acquainted with MicroSoft products, and the expectations they
create for other software.


>If you get a response from Nigel, I have had no luck getting the
>-s subject option to work.

        That's already dealt with in the LYMail.c functions, and
works fine with the stub.  In general, the file's headers appear
to be overriding the stub's switches.

                                Fote
-- 
Foteos Macrides (address@hidden during April, '98)