On Fri, 1 Aug 1997, D. J. Bernstein wrote:
But standardizing user interfaces, no matter how beneficial, is none of
the IETF's business.
Most of RFC 822 impacts the user interface. In fact, you were recently
suggesting that a Wide-Reply-To header be standardized -- thereby
mandating a user interface to that header.
The IETF's job is to promote multi-vendor interoperability by defining
standardized protocols. While it's good to avoid unnecessary constraints
on the user interface, almost every application protocol has a profound
impact on the way a user interface works.
Standardizing one subaddress format means that any product which chooses
to use the standard subaddress format (and this choice is by no means
mandatory) will interoperate with subaddress support in other products
implementing the standard.
- Chris