From: Bernie Cosell (bernie@fantasyfarm.com)
Date: Mon Jul 29 2002 - 16:10:16 CDT
On 28 Jul 2002, at 23:08, Seth Breidbart wrote:
> > What's odd is that I'd have thought that email would have the same
> > problems with 8-bit stuff as news does --- surely non-ASCII folk would
> > like to have their *actual* names in the 'From' and 'To' fields, to be
> > able to set up proper "Subjects". Even relatively minor things like
> > being able to properly spell their Organization: name...
>
> In the information-only headers, sure. There are possibly some issues
> (such as security) if they appear on the left-hand side of email
> addresses.
I don't mean to seem dense in the midst of all of the elaborate debate,
but I'm a bit confused here. What's an 'information-only' header?
The only *required* headers are the originator and the date, so I'm not
sure quite what you mean here by that. As for security and left-hand-
side, I'm not quite seeing the trap.
This still all feels wrong to me --- I can't *believe* that usenet is
going to need better-than-ASCII newsgroup names *BEFORE* email needs
better-than-ASCII. Zillions more people, world-wide, use email than use
usenet, and the character-set-lack will surely show up sooner and with a
LOT more force in the email realm, no?
Also, I guess there's a more subtle problem lurking -- when the 'local
part' of an email address can be 8-bit, then the impact isn't only in RFC
(2)822-land but also in SMTP-land, since that info will have to be
passable in the MAIL FROM and RCPT TO commands and handled properly by
the SMTP server...
> > How/Why is the IETF (politically) ignoring this?
>
> The USEFOR working group can only submit RFC's for Usenet protocols,
> not for email protocols; that's an entirely separate group.
Right. But surely SOMEONE involved with the email world has noticed that
7-bit-ascii-only is a problem?? Why not let THEM solve it, and then just
use the same mechanism for news [just as with 1036/822]? Can it really
be 'right' to have usenet and email come up with *different* [presumably
mutually incompatible] ways to solve the same problem?
/Bernie\
--
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA
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