Excerpts from internet.ietf-822: 22-Sep-91 Re: new-ish idea on non-asc..
John C Klensin(_at_)infoods(_dot_)m (9608)
That raises two issues, on which I'd appreciate comments from the Chair.
The first is one of agenda: if the goal of this group is "finish
RFC-XXXX", then I favor, strongly, clearing as much of everything else
away as possible--presumably including trying to fold in PEM and sender
authentication, a lot of essentially transport issues, etc.--adopting
only a "try to do no harm" guideline. If it is "fix 822", then all of
these complex issues are on the table and won't go away. Personally,
I'd prefer to see RFC-XXXX in my lifetime, and that argues for the first
approach.
Bravo! I don't know what we'd do without John here to clarify things
from time to time.
First of all, I think that John's strawman, though it probably needs
elaboration, is the first thing I've seen that has even a snowball's
chance of being a good general solution.
Second, I would hate to see RFC-XXXX held up to await that elaboration.
I vote for finishing RFC-XXXX with, as it stands, NO mechanism for
non-ASCII header data. Once we get XXXX out the door, it probably makes
sense to start on a new RFC specifically aimed at cleaning up the
headers, with John's strawman as a reasonable starting point. --
Nathaniel