From: Frank Ellermann (nobody@xyzzy.claranet.de)
Date: Tue Jun 29 2004 - 22:07:36 CDT
Eivind Tagseth wrote:
> The ABNF would look something like this:
[...]
> Which I find quite messy.
That's true, but if you look for some of the obs- rules in
RfC 2822... it's not better, or even worse. And BTW, if we
define this structure, then it should be an obs-subject for
the cmsg part, after all we want to get rid of the old cmsg.
With a rule like "servers and gateways SHOULD NOT act upon
obs-subject in any other way as on new-subject".
We could use a mandatory "Re: " rule only for obs-subject,
and define new-subject == 2822 subject. Fortunately there
is no obs-subject in 2822, therefore this would be a clean
solution. Messy, yes. But better than ignoring the issue.
> RFC 2822 is nice and clean, let's keep it:
> subject = "Subject:" unstructured CRLF
Sure, that would be new-subject. I've no problem with it.
> http://www.landfield.com/usefor/2004/Jun/0443.html
> http://www.landfield.com/usefor/2004/Jun/0446.html
> are quite clear, it is not going to happen, use of "Re: "
> and "cmsg" will only be documented in USEAGE.
The first link was a statement about new-subject, and all
"Re: " and body conventions derived from RfC 2822 belong
to USEAGE (or as Bruce said, only "over-the-wire" issues
are relevant for USEFOR. The side-effects of obs-subject
cmsg _are_ "over-the-wire").
The second link says "no new ABNF for 2822 subject", and
"document existing practice". That's IMHO a contradiction,
obs-subject _is_ existing practice. If Alexey wants to
solve this problem by decree "RfC 1036 servers are broken",
now that wold be... interesting. But in fact obs-subject
is a proper subset of 2822 subjects, there's no problem
with "cmsg " in mail (unless it hits a mail2news gateway).
Bye, Frank