Excerpts from internet.ietf-822: 5-Jun-91 Microsoft's Rich Text Format
Brian Wideen(_at_)vancouver(_dot_)o (1044)
This leaves one problem: should RICHMAIL be in the RFC? For two
reasons, I don't think it should:
1. it will delay the RFC because it is a whole new can of worms
Well, the next stage is to publish the proposal as an Internet Draft,
which gives us several (how many?) months for people to try implementing
it and comment on it before it advances to the RFC/Draft Standard stage.
I think Ned and I both agree that if, at that point, richmail is wildly
controversial, we should move it to a separate RFC. However, I think
that keeping it in the Internet Draft version will allow us all to
develop a better feel for the practicality, utility, and
controversiality of richmail, so that it may be a lot easier to form a
consensus one way or the other when we're advancing to the next stage.
2. it hides the proposal, which is applicable to any mail environment,
including X.400
This is a bit more compelling. But frankly, I find it hard to imagine
the X.400 committees ever formally blessing something this simple
anyway! (I look at it this way: richmail is to 822mail as ODA is to
X.400...) At any rate, if richmail works (i.e. takes off and becomes
widely used), it won't remain "hidden" for long.
Cheers. -- Nathaniel