% Date: Thu, 02 Jan 92 09:20:33 -0800
% From: Dave Crocker <dcrocker(_at_)mordor(_dot_)stanford(_dot_)edu>
% I am not exactly certain of the boundary conditions, but the basic tone
% of the IANA is to serve simply as a registration mechanism, rather than
% a review and approval mechanism. I think it is reasonable to view us as
% having enough other bodies for approval...
%
% Hence, for example, MIME can declare a registration space and choose to
% declare it as open or restricted.
Thanks.
Well I'm much less confused about the IANA's role now, but a bit more
confused about RFC-MIME's intent maybe.
I think that it is highly undesirable for new character sets (for
example) to be added merely by an arbitrary person sending them to the
IANA and them being approved or published or sanctioned by the IANA
without some IETF/IESG review.
If it is possible for someone to simply send mail and get ISO-646-G
(hypothetical example :-) blessed for use with RFC-MIME then I predict
an explosion of registered character sets. I think most of us believe
this would be a very undesirable result.
Could RFC-MIME be worded in such a way as to force future extensions
through some IETF/IESG/IAB review process ?? Or is it already doing
this and I'm confused about some other item ??
I'm sending this to the list because I suspect I'm not alone in being
unclear on this and I'm sure that some unsuspecting reader not part of
the working group would be a bit muddled.
Ran
atkinson(_at_)itd(_dot_)nrl(_dot_)navy(_dot_)mil