From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk)
Date: Tue May 04 2004 - 06:49:51 CDT
In <409701BF.2080902@erols.com> Bruce Lilly <blilly@erols.com> writes:
>Henry Spencer wrote:
>> On Sat, 1 May 2004, Bruce Lilly wrote:
>>
>> Instead, he's been trying to get you to accept a compromise, because
>> various other people (e.g., me) think some discussion of the matter *does*
>> belong in document #1
>Neither you nor anybody else in this WG has given one shred of rationale
>based on syntax or semantics for inclusion of any version of Charles'
>proposed text in a purely syntax and semantics document (i.e. document #1).
It is not proposed to put any such text in a purely syntax and semantics
document (i.e. document #1). The text in question currently sits in
section 8 which, if/when the split is made, would become a part of
document #2.
>It is clear from WG discussion, some going back 10 months, that "Re:" is
>not part of the defined syntax.
True
> It is clear that it is not part of any
>protocol exchange.
False
> All that has been produced by those insisting on
>including text regarding "Re:" that goes beyond what RFC 2822 provides
>has been statements that they "wish it were in the syntax" -- and with
>no supporting rationale.
False
> That small but loud faction continues to insist
^^^^^^^^^
large and
>that "Re:" must be given special mention in an unstructured header field
>intended to convey only human-readable information about the topic of the
>message,
> and that that unstructured field must be forbidden to begin with
>any other sequence of characters,
False
> including variations of case, such as
>"RE:", which happens to be in widespread use.
Rarely seen in my experience, but if you want to propose making it case
insensitive, they I will be happy to discuss it.
> All in spite of the fact
>that it is clearly outside of the syntax and defined semantics (viz.
>"only human-readable content" "identifying the topic of the message"),
It is primarily for the benefit of humans (indeed, non-humans need to
ignore it), nevertheless it still identifies the topic of the message.
>and therefore has no place in "A purely syntax and semantics document".
True, but we are not proposing to place it in such a document.
-- 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