Problems of Internationalized Mail Address eXtensions (IMAX)

At 8:53 PM +0100 2/24/03, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>I'm saying that when implementing a MTA it is easier if I don't have
>to implement punycode in order to support non-ASCII.

And you don't have to. IMAA-ACE works with no changes to the MTA. 
IMAX forces changes, including changing the maximum line lengths for 
the MAIL FROM and RCPT TO commands. That's pretty non-trivial.

>How would an ESMTP extension with an ACE fallback (i.e., IMAX) involve
>bouncing or dropping mail?

The second paragraph of section 2.3 sure sounds like it would bounce 
things instead of doing an ACE fallback.

>Punycode decoding is not optional if the MTA wants to support
>non-ASCII.

Where in the IMAA document does it say that? I believe you are 
completely wrong here.

>A punycode encoder is required if the MTA handle non-ASCII data in
>decoded, normal, format.  Like in the user interface for /etc/aliases,
>/etc/mail/virtusertable etc.

Neither of those are controlled by the MTA. This is getting pretty silly.

>   If it doesn't handle non-ASCII in normal
>format, it might as well not support non-ASCII at all since the user
>would never notice the different.

You are mixing up the MTA and the MUA.

>   In theory, I agree that a
>(probably) compliant MTA could be developed that didn't include a
>punycode encoder, but it would be limited.

You have mixed up compliance with marketability.

>  > In what way is using a new ESMTP extension more "easily maintained"?
>>  That certainly is not the experience in the SMTP world so far.
>
>It appears easier to implement a MTA that handle non-ASCII data, than
>to implement a MTA that handle non-ASCII data AND punycode
>decoding/encoding of that data.

But you keep talking about the need to handle fallback. Handling two 
protocols is not easier than handling one in any universe.

>  > Clean is in the eye of the beholder. You and I like UTF-8, but many
>  > people don't. Forcing them to use our preferred charset isn't a good
>  > practice if it can be avoided.
>
>I agree completely.  This is one of my problems with IDNA and IMAA, it
>forces Unicode on everyone.

Unicode is not a charset.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium