ietf-822
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Re: Charset compromise (Was Re: Character-set) header

1991-09-06 10:53:12
Harald -

     You are correct.

     This does not mean we don't care about your desire to have your native
character set in headers.

     It's just that using encodings or non-ASCII charsets in the envelope
portion of the message (which is what the whole argument is about) is the
wrong mechanism.

     I believe that what we have here is a case where some textual data --
personal names, subjects, and comments -- appears in a portion of the message
that is otherwise envelope.

     Now, gentlemen, can we think of a mechanism for expressing these texts in
non-ASCII charsets without prejudicing the ABSOLUTE NECESSITY to have the rest
of the envelope data in 7-bit ASCII, the *only* charset which we all know,
recognize, and implement?

     I believe we can.  The sooner we stop wasting our time abusing a
mechanism in a kludgy manner to solve a problem and instead think about the
correct way to solve the problem, the better.

-- Mark --