G.21. Appendix B and Message Submission

[aamelnikov]

John Klensin wrote:

Appendix B was written long ago and does not distinguish very carefully from the case where an MSA is involved from direct MUA-MTA communications. On the other hand, the situation it describes cannot arise with a conforming message submission system. Should it be rewritten and, if so, how much?

[aamelnikov]

Alexey Melnikov wrote:

I think the text needs to be updated to say "MSA" instead of "MTA", and maybe to do other tweaks.

I think the text is useful, because this is pretty much what every MUA is doing. My Web Mail server (acting as MUA) certainly does this.

[aamelnikov]

John Levine and Ken Murchison volunteered to double check the text.

Proposed to close this with "no change" in 2 weeks (March 21st 2023), unless some objections received.

[aamelnikov]

In https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/emailcore/kgmqJV7CcxTrxZbJxqZAh8I-2PU/ Ken Murchison suggested:

I just read the text in -18 and I am fine with most of it, but I wonder if we want/need to reference 5322bis, Section 3.6.3 when discussing handling of Bcc. The reason being is that I was initially taken aback by these two sentences:

Any BCC header fields SHOULD then be removed from the header section. Once this process is completed, the remaining header fields SHOULD be checked to verify that at least one TO, CC, or BCC header field remains.

Without the context that 5322bis provides regarding how blind carbon copies could be generated, it seems strange to say that all Bcc header fields should be removed and then immediately afterward say to make sure that one or more of To/Cc/Bcc still exists..

[aamelnikov]

Closed 2023-02-20 after there was no clear consensus in the WG (or even significant discussion) about the need for additional text or what it should be.

Addressed in -22.