From: Kai Henningsen (kaih@khms.westfalen.de)
Date: Sun Jan 06 2002 - 07:55:00 CST
chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk (Charles Lindsey) wrote on 01.01.02 in <Gp9KEF.4F8@clw.cs.man.ac.uk>:
> In <Pine.BSI.3.91.1011231171933.1729B-100000@spsystems.net> Henry Spencer
> <henry@spsystems.net> writes:
> >I note, with some interest (and considerable surprise), that while RFC 822
> >made some effort to promise that no X- header would ever be standardized,
> >RFC 2822 is completely silent on the matter.
>
> Yes, but it is even worse than that. The X-header convention is not
> mentioned at all! So, strictly speaking, any email with an X-header in it
> is non-compliant. Even a header not defined in RFC 2822 is non-compliant
> unless it is defined in some extension (e.g. in the MIME RFCs).
Bull.
Any not specifically mentioned field is an optional-field. That includes X-
fields.
And the reason those are not mentioned specifically is exactly the
standardization problem. It was an explicit decision to drop the X-
language because it did more harm than good.
MfG Kai