From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk)
Date: Sat Mar 13 2004 - 07:14:07 CST
In <BC76D071.CDC8%planb@newsreaders.com> "J.B.Moreno" <planb@newsreaders.com> writes:
>On 3/4/04 1:26 PM, Russ Allbery at <rra@stanford.edu> wrote:
>> You don't need to pull out the "compliant" stick to deal with this
>> problem. Software that creates articles with different semantics than the
>> user intended is clearly misfunctioning. Compliance is not the be-all and
>> end-all of whether software is correct.
>>
>> The above is the root point of disagreement between people on this list
>> right now, I think. This is the same thing that Bruce has been trying to
>> explain in a different way for some time now. It's possible to clearly
>> explain what client authors should do and what well-behaved software does
>> without trying to declare all broken software to be non-compliant.
>That's not my point of disagreement -- I really do think that the "Re: " is
>part of the syntax...
It does not have to be expressed in ABNF in order for a standard to
explain the correct way to use "Re: ". And, since putting it there merely
makes the syntax ambiguous and then you have to explain the ambiguity
away, it is not really helpful.
This WG is seriously split, as you will have noticed, and if we cannot
come to some compromise, then there is going to be no standard. I am
trying as hard as I can to pull the people on my left towards the centre.
But if we are to get anywhere, there needs to be movement from the people
on my right as well.
The essential thing that you want is for the practice of inserting "Re: "
to be recognized as a right and proper feature of followups. Indeed, you
may even want the practice to be commended rather than deprecated.
But putting it into the syntax is not necessary for that purpose, and
there is not a cat in hell's chance that it is going to happen. So forget
it.
-- 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@clerew.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