From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Fri Apr 05 2002 - 11:29:42 CST
In <5UlPTokvvWr8QAPb@pillar.turnpike.com> Paul Overell <paulo@turnpike.com> writes:
>I'm still really unhappy about this. Changing the syntax of existing
>headers is not something to be undertaken lightly. With this draft the
>only thing stopping someone from sticking parameters onto existing
>headers is the above weak "SHOULD NOT be used (for now)". Is that
>really a sufficient barrier?
>> .compliant software MUST accept (and usually ignore) them anywhere our
>> syntax allows, and
>I don't like this because, with the existing syntax, it unnecessarily
>denounces RFC1036 compliant software to be non-compliant.
Yes, but on that basis you can NEVER change a syntax from an earlier standard.
So what you do is to say
1. We want this nice feature for future expansion
2. But you SHOULD NOT use it yet
3. But you MUST implement it now to be ready for those future uses
And that MUST is a big stick to make sure they do it. OTOH, you don't
expect them to fix it in their first attempts to come into line with
the new standard, but they MUST do it eventually before thay can claim
"compliance".
This is not the only place where we have introduced new features in this
way.
OTOH, there MAY be a case for not doing this particular extension for
those headers which are likely to find their way into mail and to be
meaningful there, which is why I produced my prioritized list.
>>Now the present state of our draft:
>>
>>4d. Disallow parameters in all those headers which also appear in RFC
>>2822 (however, it might be argued that most of these are really "News
>>headers" which Email has borrowd, but does not really use). That would
>>eliminate
>> Date
>> Message-ID
>> Keywords
>>
>and References?
Oops!
-- Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------ Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl Email: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K. PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5