From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Fri Mar 22 2002 - 09:28:05 CST
In <PaBiQxAIfhm8IAgM@pillar.turnpike.com> Ian Bell <ianbell@turnpike.com> writes:
>On Thu, 21 Mar 2002, Charles Lindsey <chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk> wrote:
>>In <e8bG5rGgoGm8IAwa@pillar.turnpike.com> Ian Bell
>><ianbell@turnpike.com> writes:
>>>But MIME is _not_ for USEFOR to define. RFC2231 also transmits language
>>>information and allows for long parameters, so when (!) MIME is extended
>>>to allow 8bit headers, it may (will) not be done in the way you are
>>>proposing.
Indeed, but language information is unlikely to be an issue with the
parameters likely to be found in Usenet articles, and long parameters are
no problem (short of the 998 limit) because news has traditionally been
less fastidious about 78/9 character limits than mail (like nothing breaks
in news, though I believe some mail agents barf). And, in any case, the
RFC 2231 usages remains in our draft as a MAY use (and MUST recognize).
>>
>>I do not think we want to be a party to any standard that REQUIRES yet
>>more of cramming octets into a 7bit stream. Just because the mail people
>>are in a hole and still digging.
>The fact remains that you are trying to extending MIME in a way that
>doesn't even try to cover all the ground that RFC2231 does (language and
>parameter lengths) and so seems unlikely to be usable by the mail people
>when (!) 8bit extensions to mail do come along.
Not quite. We are trying to change ALL headers to use UTF-8 where only
ASCII was allowed before, and we are doing it consistently throughout
(leaving gateways to wrap them up where necessary).
Yes, it extends MIME (so far as news is concerned, but then that IS within
our purview because MIME does not officially apply to news yet). But then
we are also extending From and Sender and Reply-To (by allowing UTF-8 in
the phrase) and nobody is objecting to that.
>Isn't it likely the IESG won't wear what you are trying to do with MIME
>either?
I think not, because there are strong noises from IESG that UTF-8 is the
way forward for all protocols. The only problem is that everyone except us
is slow to take that advice :-( .
-- 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