Re: Intent to revive "expires" header from draft-ietf-mailext-new-fields-15

On 7/26/08 at 9:49 PM +0100, Paul Smith wrote:

>Hector Santos wrote:
>>
>>Well, it shouldn't be called "Expires" then.  Call it something 
>>else.  I like "Color-me-Gray-Date:" <g>
>
>A 'color-me-grey-date:' header (or 'only relevant before' or 
>'pointless after' or whatever) would be much more acceptable to me 
>than 'expires' - the word 'expires' suggests that it means that the 
>message *expires* after that date. When it has expired, it is no 
>longer, it is bereft of life, gone to meet its maker etc etc.That's 
>different from 'colored grey' (or Norwegian Blue, if that's more 
>acceptable). If you mean 'expires' use 'expires'. If you mean 'less 
>relevant after' then call the header 'less-relevant-after'.
>
>Don't use the wrong header name just because someone else used it 
>ages ago for something slightly different and then deprecated it and 
>you want to un-deprecate it. Use the right header name, or don't use 
>anything.

I'm sorry, but I'm not at all convinced by this. To repeat Frank, the 
"Expires:" header field *in use today* in news is defined as follows:

    The Expires header field specifies a date and time when the poster
    deems the article to be no longer relevant and could usefully be
    removed ("expired").

That's almost precisely what we've been talking about: A field to 
indicate the date after which the *sender* thinks you could delete 
this message. Do you have to delete it? No. Can you color it 
polka-dotted? Of course. But the sender is indicating that, for all 
he cares, you can delete it after this date.

Is there a potential that some bastard e-mail server will take this 
to mean that it should delete the message behind your back without 
your permission? Absolutely. But those same servers do exactly that 
with Date: fields that are too old, or Received: fields they don't 
like, or From: fields that make them unhappy, or.... Suffice it to 
say, servers will do bad things. This isn't helping them to do bad 
things. (Of course, if it turns out that lots of servers start doing 
bad things, senders won't use Expires: in fear of bad things 
happening. Such is life.)

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102