On Sat, 3 Dec 1994, Dave Crocker wrote:
My point is that it's probably ok to cite the behavior, but let's not
change our specs to give people permission to do it globally.
Agreed. How about the following:
In the absence of a MIME-Version: field, the recipient (whether
MIME compliant or not) may choose to believe anything about the
body of the message, as it may contain text using a pre-MIME
localized encoding (or anything really). There is no rule which
can determine which encoding has been used with 100% accuracy,
but localized defaults may be useful. MIME MUA's are encouraged
to support such localized defaults on received messages only, or
the adoption of MIME MUA's in some regions may be impeded.
The use of such encodings without a MIME-Version field and a MIME
charset specification is highly discouraged as it impedes
interoperability when sending messages between regions with different
localization conventions. MIME MUA software must always include
an apropriate charset specification on sent messages.
It is encouraged that non-MIME MUA software be upgraded (when
convenient) to include an apropriate MIME charset specification on
sent messages even if nothing else in MIME is supported. This
upgrade will have little, if any, effect on non-MIME recipients
and will aid MIME MUA's to accurately choose the correct display
behaviour. It also provides a smooth transition path to eventual
adoption of other MIME features.
Better?
Cheers,
Rhys.
--
Rhys Weatherley, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
E-mail: rhys(_at_)fit(_dot_)qut(_dot_)edu(_dot_)au "net.maturity is knowing
when NOT to followup"