Re: MIME messages without MIME-Version header

[Chris Newman <Chris.Newman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 22 Sep 1998, Mark Crispin wrote:
> Historical retrospective: MIME recycled the Content-Type header from an
> earlier multimedia mail specification instead of using a unique mechanism.
> To distinguish between the new and the old mechanisms, the MIME-Version
> header was invented.
> 
> Consequently, a message with a Content-Type header but not a MIME-Version
> header is not MIME.

That's entirely correct and fully compliant.

However, in practice I'd recommend treating any Content-Type header with a
"type/subtype" syntax as a MIME message.  The old version of the
Content-Type header didn't have subtypes so it is easily distinguished
from MIME Content-Type headers.

		- Chris