RE: UTF-8 over RFC 2047 (Re: Call for Usefor to recharter)

[Henry Spencer <henry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 12 Jan 2003, Dan Kohn wrote:
> > The big difference is that Usenet transport has almost since the very
> > start been fully 8 bit.
> 
> No, no, no.  Usenet has always supported 8 bit message bodies, as HTTP
> and BEEP have, and unlike SMTP.  But RFC 1036 (and RFC 850 before that)
> do *not* allow 8 bit headers...

Careful here.  The two statements are not in conflict.  Usenet transport
has never enforced this aspect of RFC 1036.  The *transport software* has
been 8-bit-clean essentially from the start, simply because none of the
software authors saw any reason to add code to enforce an artificial 7-bit
restriction.  (There were sometimes restrictions on specific items of data,
like newsgroup names, but typically not on headers in general.)

The 7-bit software issues occur only at the edges of Usenet, in gateways
to mail in particular, not in Usenet's own transport code. 

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       henry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx