Excerpts from internet.ietf-822: 5-Sep-91 Re: Charset compromise (Was..
John C Klensin(_at_)infoods(_dot_)m (3066)
So, when I read the procedural complaints, I am inclined to respond
with one of my own. The Atlanta minutes contain almost no details.
They imply that someone is going to go out and write some text and
provide some details. I'm still waiting and would argue that, if no one
does that job within some finite time, the "Atlanta decisions" should
just expire.
Although I wasn't in Atlanta, I think this situation is somewhat my
fault, so I should at least explain it.
Ned, as you know, was in Atlanta. He did indeed write up some changes
to RFC-XXXX that reflected the Atlanta decisions. We've made it a
habit, so far, not to publish new drafts until we both agree with them.
(After all, if the two authors don't agree, that sort of bodes ill for
the proposal in the larger group.) So, he sent his revisions to me,
along wth a note to the effect that I might not like some of it. He was
right, and I reopened the discussion on the list. (Actually, other
people had already reopened most of it, I just fanned the flames.) My
intent was to hold off on the new draft until it was obvious whether
there was a consensus.
So, the reason you haven't seen a new RFC-XXXX draft since Atlanta is
that one of the authors wasn't there, and was too stubborn to put the
new decisions into a document with his name on it without further
discussions. I don't think either Ned or I anticipated this situation,
but I'll certainly try to prevent it in the future. (In particular, I'm
darned well going to show up in Santa Fe!)
Actually, I'd be willing to take a shot at a new draft now, based on our
recent discussions, and starting with Ned's latest pass. If I do that,
it will solve the two outstanding controversies as follows:
1. Ban the use of encodings on types "multipart" and "message".
2. Add an optional syntax for character sets to the Content-type field.
It sounded to me like most people will be reasonably happy with these
solutions. Before you accuse me of trying to push anything down your
throat, bear in mind that #2 is not my preferred solution at all!
Cheers. -- Nathaniel