Re: I-D ACTION:draft-hoffman-utf8headers-00.txt

On Thu, 1 Jan 2004 11:20:11 -0500, Keith Moore <[email protected]> wrote:

>> He who knowingly generates a UTF-8 header would be responsible for 
>> ensuring that the "Foobar" header was added, if not already present. 
>> IOW, those who want to use this new-fangled UTF-8 stuff would be the 
>> ones to bear the cost.
>
> that's missing the point.  adding an extra field is easy, making sure 
> that all non-ascii text that is in the header is in utf-8 at the time 
> that that field is added is hard. making sure that any nonascii text 
> that is subsequently added by other agents is also in utf-8 is 
> impossible.

No, the proposal is for a standard which says all Non-ASCII in headers 
MUST be in UTF-8 (well, you can still use RFC 2047 if you really need more 
flexibility). So if anyone includes other charsets naked in a set of 
headers that contains the Foobar header, then he is con-compliant (as is 
anybody who uses even UTF-8 without Foobar). He who generates 
non-compliant messages must put up with the consequences (and that 
includes anyone who invents some local variant of the Foobar header 
allowing other charsets, if his message escapes from his local 
environment).
.
>
>> Indeed it is already happening, except that the code used is usually 
>> not UTF-8.
>
> which is exactly why tagging the entire header as either being utf-8 or 
> not doesn't work.

Which is exactly why allowing the header to be tagged as being in UTF-8 
*might* just encourage them to change their ways, because I don't see 
anything else that will stop the rot.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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