[Bug 109069] replies to mailing lists broken

[Ingo Klöcker]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=109069





--- Comment #17 from Ingo Klöcker <kloecker kde org>  2009-10-18 21:30:44 ---
(In reply to comment #15)
> Torgny, it is in reverse.
> a) RFC does not state KMail "should", it shouts "SHOULD", so KMail better has
> some _really_ good reason to ignore this

KMail does have a really good reason to behave as it does:
More consistent, reliable and predictable behavior.

Whether a mailing list message has the Reply-to header set (by the mailing
list) or not is totally opaque to the user (unless he checks the headers).

Let's assume KMail would behave exactly as stated in the RFC (see Comment #11).
In this case, if the user replied to a mailing list message (using Reply) the
reply would be addressed to
 a) the mailing list if the mailing list has set the Reply-to header
 b) the From address if the mailing list did not set the Reply-to header
This behavior is inconsistent (from the user's point of view) and totally
unpredictable (unless the user looks for the Reply-to header before each
reply). To get predictable behavior the user would have to use either Reply to
List or Reply to Author depending on what he wants to do. The normal Reply
would be useless for replies to mailing list messages due to it "erratic"
behavior.

KMail's current behavior makes the behavior of Reply more consistent, reliable
and predictable because if the user replies to a mailing list message (using
Reply) the reply would be addressed to
 a) the mailing list if the mailing list has set the Reply-to header,
 b) the mailing list if the mailing list did not set the Reply-to header, but
it did set the standard List-Post header (see
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2369#section-3.4),
 c) the From address if the mailing list did set neither the Reply-to header
nor the List-Post header


Note that the real problem is all those mailing lists that set a Reply-to
header. As soon as mailing lists stop doing this we will change KMail's
behavior. Until then KMail's behavior will not change.


> b) in 99% cases KMail violates the fields given in favor of 1% cases

Is this your personal experience? When I reply to a mailing list message then I
want the reply to go to the mailing list in 99.9 % of the cases.


> c) and now simple use case -- what is worse:
> 
> 1) send a public message to single person
> 2) send a private message to public (the world)
> 
> ?

Yes, this risk does exist. But it's not caused by KMail's behavior, but by all
those mailing lists setting the Reply-to header.

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