Re: [ietf-smtp] spinning our wheels, was Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-crocker-email-deliveredto-02.txt

[Sam Varshavchik <[e-mail]>]

Hector Santos writes:

> For the record, after 25 years, Wildcat! SMTP (or did Wildcat! UUCP) have  
> never needed, nor considered, nor knew existed nor did we looked the  
> "Delivered-To" header.
>
> What problem does it solve?

One problem in definitely solved was detecting mail loop as soon as it's  
practically possible, without having to wait until a message ping-ponged a  
bunch of times between servers. You still need to count Received: headers,  
but most mail loops get broken right away.

Beyond that, it offered mail handling software a means to avoid the need for  
explicit configuration of their mailbox address. They'll just pick it up  
from the Delivered-To: header, and run with it. This is much easier than  
picking apart the bits of the topmost Received: header, looking for the  
"for", and hoping to find one.