Re: Is it reasonable?

[Greg Vaudreuil <gvaudre@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> It became clear that in order to be capable of accepting an 8 bit
> message for tranfer, the MTA would have to be become header-aware, and
> in a highly nontrivial way. # --------------- ?

Wrong.

> I invite you to try and come up with a clean way of doing the all the work
> an MTA needs to do to take a mix of 8 bit, 8 bit encoded in 7 bit, and
> pure binary encoded in 7 or 8 bits and convert it to whatever outgoing
> path it is faced with. You either need two completely independent levels
> of encoding (they have to be completely independent if the MTA is supposed
> to be able to add a header line without knowing if other encodings are
> present) or the MTA has to get into the headers and boogie.
         # --------------------------------------------------

Let me address both of these concerns.  The first point is
contradicted by the second.  If the two levels of encoding are
independent, no header-awarness is needed.  Whether it is "grotesque"
is a different matter.

It is only the ability to send 8 bit text unencoded that I hear people
arguing for.  It would be nice to send binary, but lets leave that
bigger problem for later.  So, let's make a simplifying assertion for
the moment.  If everything besides 8 bit text (Fax, sound, video,
argitaryt binary) is translated to a 7 bit friendly format, little
conversion is needed by the high level encodings in even the worst
multi-part, multi-media through a 8 to 7 conversion senario.  (See my
previous note for an example)

We are already defining part-level encodings to be 7 bit friendly, so
this does not change the current proposal.  Only 8 bit text needs to
be converted.  This is not grotesque.  Furthermore, consider that the
majority of mail sent will continue to be single-body part text-only.
This is now far from grotesque.   

Ned, 
	It may be helpful if you could further explain senarios which
cause a "Grotesque" situation, so the list can evaluate the criticism.
After several prods, I still have only your assertion to go by.

Greg V.