I would just want to add a note to Olle Johansson's comments on the use
of RFC 1154 for encoding in MS Mail.
I am copying the IETF discussion list on this subject, and will ask any
responses to be copied there too, so that we can pursue this discussion
in an open fashion.
(The problem is that Microsoft Mail is UUencoding any message in which it
finds a byte with the high-bit set. They seem to claim that it is "standard"
because it follows the RFC 1154 spec)
As things stand now,
- RFC 1154 is unacceptable for use in the Scandinavian situation, due to its
total mangling of mail with some 8-bit characters. This means that,
indeed, 95 % of mail within Scandinavia will be UUEncoded.
- RFC 1154 is not being actively pursued by anyone in an open fashion.
(I heard *today* that some group of people are "updating" RFC 1154. These
seem to be operating totally outside the open review process that produced
MIME, and in fact nobody in the IETF community seemed to be aware of these
efforts before today)
- MIME (RFC 1341) is being actively implemented by a lot of people
- MIME has the support of a lot of Scandinavians (and others)
- MIME alone makes life in Scandinavia a lot easier, because it offers
a way to send Scandinavian mail around in a well-defined fashion without
breaking old mailers (like 7-bit mailers and BITNET gateways).
- MIME with the 8-bit SMTP extension would make life even easier, because it
avoids a lot of translation, but is not strictly required.
I think it would be a grave mistake when trying to use a standardized
E-mail network like SMTP to base oneself on work that is not sanctioned,
and indeed will probably be actively opposed, by the community that
has written the standards and are living with the results.
This is the opinion of:
- The E-mail manager of UNINETT
- The chair of the RARE Working group on Mail and Messaging
(RARE is the European union of academic networks)
- One of the authors of the Internet-Drafts describing the gatewaying of
MIME mail to X.400 (mimemhs group)
- The co-chair of the IETF mhs-ds group
These are, of course,
Harald Tveit Alvestrand