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

["David Barr" <barr@xxxxxxxx>]

> Given that people have been sending 8-bit data in headers for 
> years without regard to any existing standard, why do you 
> believe that releasing a standard that mandates UTF-8 will 
> cause them to start paying attention to standards again?

It doesn't take much common sense to see those people putting 8-bit data in
headers are precisely the ones who think a) 8-bits in headers work (for
their purposes) and thus b) would be most likely to adopt an 8-bit standard.
Most importantly they would likely be the *least* likely to accept going
back to 7 bits and encoding if they already have experience that 8-bits
work.

> I must say that I don't find the argument "because I 
> personally like this new standard better than the one that we 
> have now" particularly persuasive when it comes to predicting 
> the behavior of anyone other than you personally.

Given the history of how many standards have evolved in the past, I can't
much reason to agree with you.  Protocols are *full* of examples of this
sort of evolution, whereby technically illegal (but largely working)
practices evolved into an accepted form.  Even Usenet.  For example, the
now-obsolete 14-character newsgroup component limit.  Or the leading-digit
prohibition in early DNS.  People did illegal but common sense things, and
eventually the standards caught up to them.  Once they did, they adopted the
new more sensible stanards.

--Dave