RE: AD review comments on

At 05:52 PM 9/30/2002 -0700, [email protected] wrote:
>As long as the WG is happy with this approach I have no problem with it.

While noticing that no other participants are crying loudly for this 
feature, I'd like to be clear about its purpose:

There are 4 major points of recipient-related handling that have 
substantial import to human communication:

   1. placed into the administrative control of the recipient (DSN)

   2. placed into the UA's direct controlby pop/imap (timely)

   3. read by recipient

   4. handled/disposed by recipient (MDN)

The timely mechanism satisfies #2. The question is whether that event is 
worth noting.

In terms of process transitions, it is equivalent to the "return receipt" 
postal function. That standard function has a physical hand-off to a human 
at the destination address, and has them sign for it. (A version of the 
function requires that the signature be from the exact addressee, but we do 
not need that distinction.)

POP has exactly the right name, for the service it provides.  It is used 
when picking up mail from a place that is equivalent post office box.

Note that FedEx will not delivery to a POBox. In other words, having a 
human acknowledge the hand-off is important.

Having the MUA acknowledge the handoff does not make a claim about reading 
or disposition. However it does make a claim about receipt of the copy by 
direct "agent" software running on behalf of the user.

This event is important in the paper world.  Simply knowing that the post 
office has deposited the mail into your mailbox is NOT deemed 
noteworthy.  Handing it to a responsible agent IS.

The role of the timely timer is also significant, by providing system 
guidance about the urgency of the message, relative to recipient receipt, 
not just Internet.  And timely makes informing the originator part of the 
time factor.

It would be helpful to have comments about this issue from other 
participants in the working group.

d/




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Dave Crocker  <mailto:[email protected]>
Brandenburg InternetWorking  <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253;  fax +1.408.850.1850