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re: RFC XXXX, RFC ZZZZ, and a call for concensus (Was: My greatest fear)

1991-08-26 02:26:45
On Mon, 26 Aug 91 03:55:44 -0400, leo j mclaughlin iii wrote:

I believe John, Stef, Ned, (Mark?), and myself are agreed on the following
statement:  nested decoding should not be required of RFC-XXXX UAs.

Unless someone violently objects, can everyone out there agree on this
statement pending the November WG meeting?

I violently object.

The objections are:
 . to the wording "should not"
 . to the limitation to a specific case (nested encodings) and not the general
   problem (encodings at anything but the lowest level)

As far as I'm concerned, the statement as written above is worse than useless.

I want more plainly and specifically:
        An RFC-XXXX composer MUST NOT apply any encoding to body
        parts of type MULTIPART or MESSAGE.  An RFC-XXXX reader
        MUST ignore any encoding specification on a body part of
        type MULTIPART or MESSAGE.

This is more than merely relieving an RFC-XXXX UA of the obligation to support
nested encodings.  That would leave things in a de facto state of ambiguity.
This is a *requirement* that RFC-XXXX UA's NOT support high-level (which
includes nested) encodings, so that no RFC-XXXX composer will be written that
generates such obscenities.


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