Subject: Re: Last Call: draft-ietf-sieve-mime-loop (Sieve Email Filtering: MIME part Tests, Iteration, Extraction, Replacement and Enclosure) to Proposed Standard

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 12:53:31 -0800

At 16:44 05-12-2008, The IESG wrote:
>The IESG has received a request from the Sieve Mail Filtering Language WG
>
>(sieve) to consider the following document:
>
>- 'Sieve Email Filtering: MIME part Tests, Iteration, Extraction,
>    Replacement and Enclosure '
>    <draft-ietf-sieve-mime-loop-08.txt> as a Proposed Standard
>
>The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
>final comments on this action.  Please send substantive comments to the

This nit is not relevant to the Last 
Call.  draft-ietf-sieve-mime-loop-08 is dated November 20, 2008.  It 
expires on May 24, 2009.  The status of the memo mentions that drafts 
are valid for a maximum of six months.

Section 5 of the document defines an action where the subject or 
author of a message can be modified.  A new header field, 
Original-Subject, is defined to preserve the previous subject 
header.  A header field defined in a Standard Track RFC can be 
co-opted by other RFCs.  Such use is generally encouraged as long as 
the definition of the header is not changed.  It's common, even on 
IETF mailing lists, to see the subject line being rewritten.  Given 
the way the Original-Subject is defined in this document, it's 
difficult to reuse that header.

An Original-From header field is also defined in that section.  The 
document does not provide a rationale for preserving the From header 
given that the changes are being done by the recipient of the message.

  "Implementations MAY also impose restrictions on what addresses can be
   specified in a ":from" parameter;"

RFC 5322 specifies that:

   "In all cases, the "From:" field SHOULD NOT contain any mailbox that
    does not belong to the author(s) of the message.  See also section
    3.6.3 for more information on forming the destination addresses for a
    reply."

The wording in this document may be read as loosening that restriction.

If the entire message is being replaced, it is a new message.  As 
such, the From header should specify the author, i.e. the mailbox(es) 
of the person(s) or system(s) responsible for the writing of the 
message (RFC 5322 Section 3.6.2).  There is no mention of what should 
be done if the message contains a Message-ID field.  As the 
Message-ID is unique message identifier that refers to a particular 
version of a particular message, a new one would have to be generated 
if we consider the message as a new one.  If we are changing the 
author, then the message should be viewed as a new instantiation of 
the message.

Is there a need for Original-Subject and Original-From headers as 
defined in this specification?

Please change the reference from RFC2822 to RFC5322.

Regards,
-sm 

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