Re: [Emacs-diffs] /srv/bzr/emacs/trunk r104691: Don't reuse previous Message-id when resending.

[Richard Stallman]

     > Using a new Message-ID can't do any harm.

    Maybe not to you, but in case of partial failure it will create a new
    subthread, confusing participants in the original thread.

I cannot follow that concretely.  However, it is perfectly normal to
write multiple responses to a single incoming message.  Retrying the
first response with a new Message-ID is a special case of that, so it
can't be wrong.  I am confident that any programs designed to keep
track of threads do something reasonable in this case.

     > It isn't wrong.

    Sorry, Richard, that is not yours to decide.

It is not up to you what the GNU Project can decide.

    From RFC 5322:

The RFC forgot to send an army with you, so it cannot expect to be
obeyed.

In the GNU Project, we do not obey standards -- we consider them, then
DTRT.  Often TRT is to do what the standard says.  Sometimes TRT is
something else.  For instance, GCC doesn't obey the ANSI C spec unless
you use --pedantic.  Bash does not obey the POSIX spec unless you set
POSIXLY_CORRECT.

You can make arguments about what is TRT, but they can only succeed if
they do not presume the RFC has authority.

    in general it is the sender's
    decision, not the implementer's

I agree, and that's how it is.  This variable specifies the way the
mail buffer is initialized.  The user has ultimate control.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
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USA
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