Excerpts from mail: 27-May-93 nordunet.redist.ietf #4138 ..
Harald(_dot_)T(_dot_)Alvestrand(_at_)dela (537)
I found this example of why I think we need to be able to hide
"optional but not essential" header-like body parts.
That is what the multipart/related;header= construct set out to do.
If you read the MIME-PEM draft, you'll see that this is solved there
with "multipart/pem", which I still tend to think is better than
"multipart/related" because I don't see where a general purpose
"related" construct tells you enough to be useful anyway, and a new
multipart subtype makes it easier to switch on the type, in the style of
metamail. But I'm not a fanatic on this score.
So far, there has been next to no comments on this aspect.
Well, I've made the above comment as often as people would listen. :-)
But as to your specific proposal for multipart/related, I must confess
that I've been carrying it in my briefcase for a week now and still
haven't read it due to being swamped. But I will get to it soon! --
Nathaniel