From: Erland Sommarskog (sommar@algonet.se)
Date: Thu May 09 2002 - 04:39:38 CDT
Andrew Gierth <andrew@erlenstar.demon.co.uk> writes:
> >>>>> "Charles" == Charles Lindsey <chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk> writes:
> >> 2. It still attempts to introduce changes which are unnecessarily
> >> incompatible with existing implementations (for example, the
> >> introduction of purely cosmetic whitespace and folding, comments, or
> >> parameters, into important machine-parsed headers)
>
> Charles> But these are all directed to making a cleaner system, with
> Charles> better compatibility with Email, in the long term.
>
> Compatibility with email does not require changes to the syntax of
> headers never used in email (such as Path or Newsgroups).
>
> Charles> They are all SHOULD NOT generate.
>
> untrue - the draft even goes so far as to use "SHOULD" for folding the
> Path header
Since folding of Path apparently is in 1036, Path is not covered by
"attempts to introduce changes". If we were to revert completely and
outlaw folding of Path, we would have to make a note with regards to
RFC 1036, wouldn't we?
As for folding Newsgroups, I would welcoming folding of it from a user
perspective. I moderated the announce group for the se. hierarchy, and
articles are often widely cross-posted. Being permitted to fold
Newsgroups or use space would faciliate my work. (I assemble the articles
in Emacs, and post directly with inews.)
Now, tell me, Andrew. If we wanted to make this improvement, what would
be the best path to take? First approach all newsserver authors and
have them change their software, and keep an eye on things coming out
on the market at the same time. And, one day when we know that all
currect software OK, we revise the standard. Call me stupid and naïve,
but it appears to be a more effective way of introducing it in an
RFC with a initial SHOULD NOT generate.
Then it is true, as the example of Path and 1036 shows, that not even
that approach may work. We may be condemned to live forever of the
mistakes of the 1980s.
> Reviewing the list traffic at the time suggests that many of the
> people responding supported retaining the policy issues only in the
> interests of producing a completed draft, on the assumption that _any_
> document was better than nothing.
Yes, count me in on that one.
And I can give a specific argument. For me this entire standard stands
and falls with one thing: UTF-8 in newsgroup names. Take it out, and
I cannot find much justification for it.
> I disagree; I think that the current draft is sufficiently bad that it
> would be better in the long term for it to die, and for those changes
> that are actually necessary to continue happening as they have done
> for the past 15 years since RFC 1036, than for it to be published as
> an RFC in its current form.
OK, how we get UTF-8 in newsgroup names without an RFC? (It has not to
be UTF-8, as long it permits groups to be called se.test.räksmörgås,
but it appears that UTF-8 is the most viable solution in the long run.)
-- Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, sommar@algonet.se