Folks,
In response to specific queries, here are a few positions I'd like to
articulate and see accepted.
1) The header character set issue is an important one for this group,
and one that has been on the slate of this WG from the beginning. I
do not feel that the solution to this problem can wait for the "big"
rewrite of 822, especially having watched the trouble other WG's are
already having with these issues. It is clear that any serious
rewrite of 822 headers will need to address many religious issues and
will be slow in reaching consensus.
2) The KTH proposal is a workable first cut that addresses many of the
concerns, but, at this point, not all. I'm not willing to commit at
this time to that proposal as THE solution to be put in RFCXXXX,
however, I believe that it should be pursued in the same time frame.
I propose:
1) Patrick and Company should elaborate on their proposal based on
comments from this list and write their proposal in the form of an
RFC. It is important that this narrow problem be addressed on it's
own merits.
2) The proposal should be discussed in Santa Fe, along with any other
credible, documented proposals. (Please compete!) If there are no
other proposals, and this one is found to be minimally acceptable,
then I will argue for it's publication as a companion RFC to XXXX to
be standardized as set. If the proposal cannot be endorsed as
minimally acceptable, and there are no better proposals, I'd like to
consider publishing it as an Experimental RFC to gain experience with
it.
I would like to see a complete specification of the real-xx proposal.
It seems to have promise but needs to address some unresolved issues.
In a related note:
The headers to be addressed should not explicitly include the Net News
headers, as enumerated in RFC 1036. There is a IETF working group
considering these issues. They are planning to adapt the news
message format to conform to the RFCxxxx definitions, and I'd expect
them to evaluate the news-headers in terms of this WG's work.
Greg Vaudreuil
Chairman, 822 Message Extensions Working Group.