From: Per Abrahamsen (abraham@dina.kvl.dk)
Date: Sat Apr 14 2001 - 14:09:09 CDT
chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk (Charles Lindsey) writes:
> OTOH, any agent that tries to interpet such a header
> may end up doing more harm than good. Hence the "SHOULD NOT interpret".
It might do so, and it might not. The newsreader author, who know the
header in question, and know what interpretation he intents to
implement for that header, is in a much better position to judge
whether the harm is likely to oughtweight the benefit that we are.
> I agree that is maybe a bit too strong, but I see no other way to word it
> that does not give carte blanche to upstart implementors (a certain Mr
> Gates springs to mind) to invent new "features" that turn out to make
> Usenet unusable for everyone else. That has happened too many times in the
> past.
If Mr. Gates company want to implement extra functionality, and why
shouldn't it, most of the alternatives to new headers are worse from
an interoperability point of view. Had "visit cards" (which are not
Mr. Gates fault), been a new header instead of an attachment, they
would have been much less annoying.