From: Pete Resnick (presnick@qualcomm.com)
Date: Wed May 21 2003 - 11:34:26 CDT
Let me start off by noting that Bruce is the only one arguing for
removal of this restriction. Bill has recently posted a message
asking why the restriction is necessary, but I think Russ's earlier
message about INN rejecting (not simply mis-displaying) messages
answers that query quite completely. I therefore see (at present)
good consensus to leave the restriction in and no consensus to remove
it.
More importantly (and I would like others to take this into account
in the future), because Bruce continues to be the only one arguing
and the number of his messages is so high, I imagine that if there
are other people interested in supporting him, they are not going to
because of the barrage. (On this topic alone in the past 5 days,
Bruce has sent 7 messages , Charles has sent 4, I have sent 4 [though
two of them were only 1-2 sentence queries], and Russ and Bill have
sent 1 each.) Having the document editor do the largest share of
arguing for the other position has the same effect (and the added
effect that people feel like if the document editor says it, there's
no use arguing against it). I think this pattern seriously squelches
discussion and doesn't allow the chairs to see whether there is
general support for a position, or if it's just one or two people
screaming loudly.
All: Please try to allow other people to participate and hold your
responses for a while to see if anyone else is supporting you or
whether you're completely off base. The current discussion is not
doing any persuading nor is it trying to reach consensus.
On just a few points in Bruce's message:
On 5/21/03 at 11:40 AM -0400, Bruce Lilly wrote:
>That's not impossible (nor really difficult -- not even moderately
>difficult) to put in the ABNF.[...] It does mean that syntax for
>every field differs from that given in 2822 and other relevant RFCs
>(2045, 1864, 2156, 2424, 3282, etc.)
It's not just every field; it's even quite a bit of the field
contents (i.e., some of the lower-level ABNF) that has to change.
That would be a bummer.
>A comment before the mailbox is not one of the permitted forms
A comment before the mailbox is not one of the permitted forms in
1036 *to specify a full name*. There is nothing in the text that
forbids it, just as there is nothing in the text that forbids
multiple whitespace before the comment even though it's not shown in
the permitted forms. Agreed that it will confuse parsers who are
looking for a full name, but that's mostly a display issue.
>>If you are avoiding breaking INN, putting a comment at the
>>beginning of the field with the potential of confusing a few
>>implementations into displaying the wrong full name seems perfectly
>>legitimate.
>
>Well, let's agree that it moves the breakage to a different piece of
>software. But there's still breakage.
Let's also agree that there is a significant difference between
breaking proper display of a full name and non-delivery of a message.
>If it's an absolute requirement for non-whitespace content on the
>first field line, then a field w/o non-whitespace content on the
>first line will never arise
Please re-read the above and tell me how it makes any sense,
especially in light of a MUST generate syntax in 2822 that differs
significantly from a MUST accept.
pr
-- Pete Resnick <mailto:presnick@qualcomm.com> QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102