[Mailman-Developers] Re: Dates

[Owen Taylor]

David Champion <dgc@uchicago.edu> writes:

> On 2001.05.01, in <20010501183541.06693@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us>,
> 	"Jay R. Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
> > > correct.  How would it possibly know?  You're discussing ways to make a
> > > correct guess in most cases, but not a way to ensure correct
> > > information in all cases.
> > 
> > Stipulated.  But we're not rewriting for retransmission, only to keep
> > the archives clean; right, Barry?
> 
> That's what I understand, too.  My personal taste is that an archive
> reflect with complete accuracy and fidelity what was received from the
> transmitter -- not the recipient's interpretation thereof.  This is
> only relevant to particulars of implementation, though, not to whether
> the general solution is applied at all.  For example, I think it's more
> appropriate to leave the default at "don't munge incoming mail at
> all".

At the risk of prolonging this discussion, it may be worth pointing
out that there are two different "dates" here:

 1) The date in the Date: field displayed in the archive

 2) The date used for sorting and for splitting archives by
    month/year.

I'm of the opinion that 1) should always be the same date as generated
by the MUA, but that using that date for 2) is, from experience, a bad
idea, because some user's machines will have badly screwed up clocks,
and you get archive volumes for ridiculous periods, etc.

Currently, Mailman, currently, always uses the same date for both 1)
and 2) - either the MUA date, or the date when the mail passed through
mailman. From my perspective, arguing about which one of these
is superior is somewhat pointless, since as soon as you use the
same date for both, you are going to have problems.

Regards,
                                        Owen