From: Keith Moore <moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu>
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 17:38:53 -0500
For example, it's completely unreasonable to expect a mail reader
to recognize a file name in any MIME character set and translate
that character set to whatever is used locally.
I don't think anyone would disagree with this; i.e., that one can't
expect a client to necessarily interpret characters which belong to
a character set other than one recognized locally.
At the same time, it is unreasonable to expect that a client should or
can guess the encoding used in a file name or URL, etc. Unfortunately,
it is precisely this state of affairs that holds in current practice.
If I may digress for a moment; I should think it is crucial that we
don't drag our feet on coming up with a solution here, particularly
one that can also be used in URLs. Just think how many URLs are
starting to show up on TV, in magazines, newspapers ... The lack
of a standard way to identify the encoding of non-ASCII in URLs
is already having an impact on the ability to advertise in domains
which don't employ the roman alphabet. A solution is needed immediately
to prevent the proliferation of URLs which use the %-encoding but
which have no way to identify the character encodings being encoded.
Regards,
Glenn Adams