ietf-822
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: EBCDIC & uuencode/uudecode

1991-05-09 09:55:27

(In regard to RFC support for EBCDIC and uuencode/decode changes
 to make it more EBCDIC-compatible. )

  I know of sites in the US that do use a fair number of IBM
S/370-type systems with EBCDIC and they have conversion software at
their Internet link to handle the problem of converting US ASCII
to/from EBCDIC at that point.  It seems to me that such sites are in
the best position to comment on that situation.  I am unenthusiastic
about changing very much to support a proprietary character set that
is so limiting.  I would be most interested in hearing from folks with
experience implementing such US ASCII <--> EBCDIC gateways on existing
Internet systems, because I think that they would have the best
insight into what the real problems are.

  I am not "fixed in concrete" about the uuencode question by any
means, but I do want to avoid breaking widespread existing practice in
the form of existing implementations that work on such diverse systems
as VMS and UNIX and MSDOS and the Macintosh, etc.  Most of the value
in uuencode/uudecode is in that compatible implementations are already
widespread.  As noted in my earlier posting, I am fairly indifferent
about the inclusion of uuencode/uudecode support in the RFC anyway.  I
don't recall that it is defined in any of the POSIX.2 drafts (neither
is compress/uncompress) and I think that concerns about a non-source
definition of the utility are legitimate.

  I am glad to read that Keld and I are somewhat in agreement about
"selection of character sets"; any motion towards consensus is a good
thing.

Randall Atkinson
randall(_at_)Virginia(_dot_)EDU



<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>