From: Bruce Lilly (blilly@erols.com)
Date: Thu Apr 22 2004 - 09:34:08 CDT
Charles Lindsey wrote:
> In <407DDDD7.9030005@erols.com> Bruce Lilly <blilly@erols.com> writes:
>
>
>>>>The ABNF permits single-component newsgroup-names in the Newsgroups
>>>>header field, i.e. it is syntactically legal.
>>>
>>>
>>>You take a very narrow view of the term "syntactically legal"
>
>
>>No, I am pointing out the fact that the ABNF does not agree with the
>>text of the draft. That discrepancy can and should be rectified.
>
>
> If the text of the draft specifies addtional restrictions over and above
> the syntax of some construct as defined by the ABNF, then the text of the
> draft wins over the ABNF. To then say that "That illegal construct is
> syntactically legal" is then mere sophistry.
If there is a discrepancy, there is no "winner", there are only "losers".
>>>That is exactly the sort of extension we might be able to make in the
>>>future once we have established that MIME-style parameters are a feature
>>>of all headers. But for the moment it is a recipe for causing all sorts of
>>>presently working things to stop working.
>
>
>>No, the proposal has nothing whatsoever to do with "MIME-style parameters".
>>In fact, you have maintained that such parameters cannot be used with any
>>field whose field body might contain email addresses, so effectively you
>>have proved my earlier point that specifying such parameters in the syntax
>>is a premature constraint on possible future directions.
>
>
> That would not apply if the email address were to be included within some
> parameter, as in
>
> Followup-To: poster; address="foo@example.com"
There is no need for such contortions, as
Followup-To: poster
and
Followup-To: foo@example.com
are unambiguous. The first of those is legal and the second is less likely
to cause problems than your example.
> However, the point is moot, since we are not in the position to be able to
> introduce such a feature at the present time.
The draft introduces Mail-Copies-To, and there are conflicts in the
specified usage. One method of eliminating the conflicts has been proposed.
If you would like to propose an alternative, by all means do so.
>>The burden is in requiring existing agents which generate "RE: " to change.
>>At least one such agent is among the three most widely used ones on Usenet.
>
>
> I have already said that if you wish to relax the "case sensitive"
> restriction regarding "Re: " in the present texts, then you should start
> a new thread to propose that. and see if others on this WG support the
> idea.
And I have already said that such text has no place in either the syntax
& semantics document or the network operations document. We can discuss
the matter once we have submitted drafts of those two documents to the
IESG in accordance with the planned work of this WG as established by
our co-chairs.
In order to complete the Standards Track documents, we need to address the
conflicts w.r.t. Followup-To and Mail-Copies-To.