Re: Can we back up a bit and ask some basicquestions?Analternate model

 > That's not a small "only problem". It means that messages might be 
 > rejected or accepted at different times and therefore the sender will 
 > not be able to predict whether or not he can send a message. Note 
 > that this problem manifests not only for To: addresses, but also 
 > From: and Cc: addresses (and probably others...). You can't predict 
 > whether or not your inclusion of your own IMAA in the From: field or 
 > the Cc: field will cause a message to be bounced.

I think the only way this would be viable is if it was mandatory to
convert to IMAA-ACE rather than bounce.  The MUA issue would be up to
local sites.  Until they'd upgraded all their MUAs, they could simply
convert all mail to IMAA-ACE, or they could make decisions on a per
mailbox basis.

The point is that it *is* viable to regard IMAA-ACE as a transition
strategy to a native UTF-8 format (at least as far as SMTP based mail
goes) because we have a robust negotiation mechanism.  In this way,
IMAs are different from IDNs.  Support for the IMAA-ACE would still
have to remain for a *long* time, of course (perhaps decades).

I'm not necessarily saying it's a good idea, just noting that it is
possible.

	-roy