[imp] Signature

[Michael M Slusarz]

Quoting Luis Felipe Marzagao <lfbm.andamentos at gmail.com>:

> I also think wrinting a msg and not seeing what will be the final  
> text is really confusing and nonintuitive, mainly for real  
> life/regular users, but since this is open source software, at least  
> you can alter the code. Imagine if it were proprietary/closed  
> software.

Several of you have raised this "argument".  And it is completely bogus.

NO MUA THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN "GUARANTEES" THAT WHAT YOU "SEE" IN THE  
COMPOSE WINDOW IS ACTUALLY WHAT IS SENT OUT.  MUA's add all sorts of  
things to outgoing messages that users have no control of.  MUA's  
should be able to change/fix formatting as necessary to fix user  
errors.  MUA's can convert HTML text to plain text, or vice versa, or  
add different representations of the data (which IMP allows).  An  
admin can add a trailer to every message which cannot be altered by  
the user and will never be seen by the user (which IMP allows).

The simple fact with signatures IS THAT THE **USER** IS THE ONE THAT  
ADDED THE SIGNATURE DATA IN THE FIRST PLACE.  This is not the case of  
someone "altering" a message or "adding" data without the user's  
consent.  For a signature to be added to a message, the user  
necessarily needed to create the data at one point.  Nothing is being  
"added" or "altered" to the message that the user has not already  
tacitly approved.

This is a great example of a specious argument: one that might look  
like it has merit on its face, but if you even take a few seconds to  
analyze the details there is absolutely no basis to it.

michael

___________________________________
Michael Slusarz [slusarz at horde.org]