Re: SUMMARY: Limiting msg-id generate syntax

On Mon, 7 May 2007, Pete Resnick wrote:
> So, scream now or forever hold your peace on the following:
>
> - Define the left hand side of the "@" in msg-id to be (dot-atom-text / 
> ob-id-left)
> - Leave the right hand side of msg-id as it is (dot-atom-text / 
> no-fold-literal / obs-id-right)
> - Leave the text to normatively RECOMMEND (or should it be REQUIRE?) that the 
> right hand side be a domain identifier (either domain name or domain literal)

Sounds good to me.

...
> I'd also be inclined to *not* talk about case-sensitivity and comparisons 
> since nowhere is it discussed in 2822.

Message-ids a required to be globally unique.  How can an implementor 
know that his generate-id algorithm is acceptable without knowing what the 
equality test is?  (Okay, that's a bit weak...)

The real issue for 2822 is actually in the copying of message-ids into the 
in-reply-to and references fields.  A MUA that forces id-right components 
to lower-case will break threading.  I guess the current text's 
description of how the reply's references and in-reply-to fields are 
generated is good enough, given that is says "copy the contents" and not 
"extract the ids and put them in the new field".


Probably unrelated to the above: MUAs have to accept messages with 
message-ids using the obsolete syntax, but if they follow the rules when 
generating a reply then the reply won't obey the generate syntax.


Philip Guenther