From: Bruce Lilly (blilly@erols.com)
Date: Fri Feb 14 2003 - 11:55:36 CST
J.B. Moreno wrote:
> On 2/12/03 10:44 AM, Bruce Lilly at <blilly@erols.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Before utf-8 can be adopted, there needs to be a transition
>>period where there is a moratorium on *all* untagged 8-bit
>>header field content as a prerequisite to a state where
>>the only untagged 8-bit content is utf-8. The current
>>Usefor draft lacks such a transition plan.
>
>
> Because it doesn't need it -- UTF8 can be reliably inferred, and even if it
> couldn't it wouldn't matter; as a last resort the user can always tell the
> UA what it is.
UTF-8 in the absence of tagging and in the presence of other
untagged 8-bit charsets cannot be reliably detected, particularly
for the short runs of text typical of text in header fields.
And which user and which UA? RFC 2277 requires that the protocol
provide end-to-end preservation of language tags from the
originating user through transport to the recipients. Throwing
away language information during transport is not compliant
with RFC 2277.