Re: A proposal

[Keld J|rn Simonsen <keld@xxxxxxxx>]

> > > B. Mandate that the third token on the 220 greeting line be some
> > >    magic, like "8859-1", unlikely to be part of a normal greeting.
> 
> > If a round-trip must be avoided and the reply code method isn't
> > feasible, something like this might be tried. The magic shouldn't say
> > anything about the character set, though, if you only want to advertize
> > your 8-bit capability. Something like "I-HAVE-EIGHT-BIT-DATA-PATH" might
> > be better. The server could also tell at the same time if it can do
> > binary.
> 
> Whatever you say.  The point is that we do, in fact, transfer text, and
> we do not, in fact, transfer binary data.  There seems to be (at least to
> me) a consensus that ISO 8859-1 is the way to go for 8-bit _text_ _mail_.
> Robert Ullmann (hi!) has even made a refrain out of it.  So let's sing!

Excuse me (while I kiss the sky), giving only suppport for 8859-1
would be sub-standard, and not meet the present requirements.

I am representing EUnet here, EUnet is a major Internet player
in Europe and the only operator offering a pan-european Internet
service (that I know of).

EUnet has departments in the following European countries: Norway,
Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Britain, Ireland,
the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria, Soviet Union, Tzeckoslovakia,
Hungary, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Yugoslavia and Greece (hope I did not
forget any:-). There is about 2000 sites on EUnet (mostly uucp based).

As such, to provide a sufficient service to all our customers,
we need to be able to handle full Latin (including East-European),
Cyrillic and Greek.

Wearing my RARE hat, the RARE ad hoc WG on character sets has passed
a resolution that support for a lot of character sets were
required, to accomodate user requirements. The character sets
included IBM and other popular vendors' character sets, and
also Greek and Cyrillic. RARE is also a major player on the European
Internet scene.

So as a representative for those two groups I can inform you that
just employing 8859-1 would not address the needs in this market.
I wonder which other market it was intended to cover?
Canada and Latin and South America? The Nordic countries?
Western Europe? Well, it is not enough to cover major network
organisations in Europe.

And it does not cover Japan, which has (as far as I understand it)
a strong existing practice in Japanese Internet mail.

I am unhappy about this American (and some western Europeans
which cannot see beyond their own nosetip) "we know better" attitude,
and that such vital decisions are to be taken on an American IETF
meeting where Europeans and other affected really have a hard time
to attend (especially in these days).

I will propose that IETF does not take final decisions in STL,
but take contacts to international parties (including EUnet, RARE,
EARN, JUNET) with regards to international mail, and maybe let these
people decide how their requirements can be fulfilled.

Keld