From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Thu Mar 06 2003 - 09:56:01 CST
In <3E664B7E.B21D59F0@oceana.com> Ken Murchison <ken@oceana.com> writes:
>Sorry, I was unclear. The user's aren't the problem, the authors of the
>software are the problem. The software shouldn't be sending out the
>untagged data, it should be encoded according to the standards. If the
>authors of the packages being used chose not to do so, then shame on
>them. If they did this because there was no viable alternative, then
>they should have been part of a solution, not part of making the problem
>bigger.
No, it is not like that. The authors of the software wrote it with the
understanding that headers would be 7-bit ASCII.
The users then discovered that it would work with 8-bit "guess the
charset". You can't blame the software authors for that, though you might
blame them if they subsequently went along with what their users were
clamouring for as they developed their systems further.
"The man who pays the piper calls the tune" is an inescapable law of
economics. It is what drives Bill Gates (although some might say he has a
rather strange idea of what his users "want", nobody would deny that he is
trying to please them, though many might argue that they deserve what
they get :-) ).
>If any new standard causes things to break for non-compliant messages,
>then either the authors will fix their software, or the users will vote
>with their feet and select a different package. Is this harsh?
>Absolutely, if it comes to that.
The "pipers" will do all in their power to prevent the "payers" from
walking away. Therefore they will continue to try to straddle the gulf
between what the standard say and what their users will accept. Maybe they
will fall in :-( .
But maybe they will draw the IETF after them.
Yes, it's a harsh world, and _nobody_ is immune to that.
>I think that it has been conceded by just about everyone that making
>everything 8-bit clean is the most elegant solution, but it isn't
>_necessary_. But as I always tell my wife and kids, there is a BIG
>difference between wanting something and needing something.
I think it is clear that making everything 8-bit clean HAS to happen,
whether to comply with new standards, or just to provide a working
environment within which such new standards can be developed.
-- 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