Excerpts from info-mime: 15-May-94 Re: Suggest promoting Conte.. Harald
Alvestrand(_at_)uninet (633*)
Will it be satisfactory if I include weasel words to say that
"the MIME standard [ref] says that gateways may nuke non-Content-*
headers; this should be considered when choosing names for headers
that might be used in a difference= parameter"?
I think that would be just fine with me.
Then the restriction will be gone if MIME changes its mind.
(the rule is silly, IMHO, because any gateway that can preserve
arbitary Content-* headings is probably able to preserve *any*
arbitary heading, while those that can't do an open-ended set of headings
won't be able to handle Content-* either. See the MIME-MHS documents
for one example of trouble)
I think you misunderstand the intent here. There was never an
expectation that a gateway would necessarily be able to handle all part
headers AUTOMATICALLY. Rather, the "Content-*" rule is supposed to be a
guideline to gateway implementors, to help them figure out which headers
matter in the sub-parts of multipart messages. In other words, the
"Content-*" rule simply gives a simple definition for which set of
headers might be considered imporatant enough for gateways to treat
specially in body parts. -- NB