From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Jan 01 2002 - 08:58:11 CST
In <Pine.BSI.3.91.1011231204010.4003A-100000@spsystems.net> Henry Spencer <henry@spsystems.net> writes:
>What I want outlawed is exactly what I specified: the user of X- headers
>*AS COMMENTS*. That is, as material deliberately intended to be read only
>by humans. There is a common practice -- which I unfortunately encouraged
>in son-of-1036 -- of transforming a header, e.g. an about-to-be-superseded
>NNTP-Posting-Host header, into a comment by just tacking an "X-" on the
>front. The X- prefix should be reserved for experimental new headers,
>i.e. for headers intended to eventually be meaningful to software; it
>should not be used as a generic comment convention.
Oh Dear!
Henry wants to outlaw X-headers as pure comments, but to allow them as
experimental headers that may one day become part of Netnews.
Brad wants exactly the opposite. Experimental headers to be non-X
headers, but apparently no problem with X-headers for local or comment usage.
I think I am slightly nearer Brad's position on this, insofar as I am
perfectly happy with the present usage of X-headers for vanity, comments,
superseded headers, etc, but would like to see some mechanism whereby
experiments that are intended to be in the field eventually can have a
non-X-header at as early a stage as possible.
The problem I have with Henry's approach is that he seems to think that
experiments using X-headers can be tried out 'live' to see that they work,
but then they should be replaced by non-X-headers at the moment they cease
to be "experiments"; i.e. at the exact point when software around the
world starts getting written to recognise them. The flaw, of course, is
there is no means to determine when that "exact point" is reached.
Experience indicates that good ideas that are tried out live (and even
some poor ideas) tend to find themselves coded into software before anyone
has realised what is happening, and by then it is too late.
I think the only solution that has any chance of working is a registry,
with fairly flexible rules. And even that will fail sometimes.
Anyway, possibilities for our present draft are
(1a) Allow non-X-headers for comment/vanity/local/superseding purposes.
(1b) Insist on X-headers for comment/vanity/local/superseding purposes.
(2a) Allow non-X-headers for experimental protocols
(2b) Insist on X-headers for experimental protocols
The present draft is (1b)+(2b).
Henry seems to want (1a)+(2b)
Brad seems to want (2a)+I am not quite sure which of (1a) or (1b)
I think I want (1b)+(2b), with maybe a hint that this may change later,
possibly via some IANA mechanism.
-- 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