From: Kai Henningsen (kaih@khms.westfalen.de)
Date: Wed Apr 30 2003 - 02:15:00 CDT
blilly@erols.com (Bruce Lilly) wrote on 28.04.03 in <3EAD2C7E.2040007@Sonietta.blilly.com>:
> Charles Lindsey wrote:
> > On Fri, 25 Apr 2003 17:49:51 -0400
> > Bruce Lilly <blilly@erols.com> said...
>
> >>>>>2.3 The content of the first line of a header MUST NOT consist of WSP
> >>>>> only (though such SHOULD be accepted).
>
> >>Bear in mind that there is no such restriction in either RFC 822 or
> >>2822, that there are such things as mail-to-news gateways and combined
> >>UAs.
> >>
> >>Is the restriction still relevant to current news software, or is it
> >>a vestige of ancient software which is no longer used?
> >
> >
> > It was taken from son-of-1036. Perhaps Henry should speak up, but I
> > think it is related to that obligatory SP after the ":". If some agent
> > somewhere tries to remove trailing whitespace (not allowed, but that
> > will not stop it from happening), then that SP may get removed as well,
> > and something else will break further down the line.
>
> Specifically what (in current news software) will break, and in what way?
> There's no requirement for SP after the colon either, in either 822 or
> 2822, so again this comes back to the question of whether the old 1036
> restriction is still necessary. If not, it should be dropped.
Is there any particular reason why we have to rehash each of these things
for Bruce? *All* of these kind of things should be in the archive. *All*
of them were researched.
> >>>>>2.7 There must not be more than one header with a given header-name,
> >>>>> except where explicitly sanctioned by the appropriate standard. In
> >>>>> particular, there MUST NOT be more than one Keywords-header.
> >>>>
> >>>>But multiple Keywords fields are "explicitly sanctioned by" RFC 2822.
> >>>
> >>It was in RFC 733, which predates Usenet. It's also in 822 which 1036
> >>defers to on most matters.
> >
> >
> > Are you sure? What was the date of RFC 733? Usenet is certainly quite a
> > bit older than the Internet.
>
> Yes, I'm sure. RFC 733 is dated 21 November 1977. Usenet started in 1980.
> The Internet began in 1969, at which time it was known as ARPANET. IIRC,
> 1969 came a bit more than a decade *earlier* than 1980. You can, if you
> care, follow the trail of Keywords back even further; it was also in
> RFC 724, which was 733's predecessor.
Anyway, that is really irrelevant. The relevant question is who first
talked about more than one Keywords: header.
This is what RFC 822 said:
This specification permits multiple occurrences of most
fields. Except as noted, their interpretation is not
specified here, and their use is discouraged.
and
4.6.4. KEYWORDS
This field contains keywords or phrases, separated by
commas.
In other words, multiple Keywords: fields are "discouraged" and "their
interpretation is not specified".
So, the 2822 definition seems to be a 2822 invention. I do not know why
this slipped through, but IMO it should not have.
> > This was discussed quite thoroughly in the early days of Usefor. There
> > is some software around, apparently, which looks at the "Re: " for
> > various purposes, and anything which generates "Sv: " will break that.
>
> I'm not suggesting use of "Sv: ", I'm suggesting that all of the subject
> hacks should be removed from the documents. If a UA author wants to
> *display* "Re: " or some localized variant for the subject when a message
> contains a References or In-Reply-To field, I don't care, but it is
> redundant and contrary to Subject being *unstructured* to require that
> Subject be *structured* with specific content.
It is, however, an important part of interoperation in Usenet. This is not
something you can discuss away.
(And, for that matter, MIME encoded words are contrary to the Subject
being unstructured in exactly the same way.)
MfG Kai