At 5:50 PM -0600 3/20/02, Eric Fischer wrote:
If format=flowed doesn't work for some charsets, then OK, it may
be necessary to introduce a new format option to deal with the more
general case. But it should be used only in those cases where
format=flowed will do the wrong thing.
For the charsets where format=flowed already works, mailers should
continue to send messages using the existing standard so that they
can continue to be understood by both new and old software. And
mailers that understand the new format option should continue to
understand format=flowed so they will work with both new and old
messages.
Otherwise, people who write software that sends mail will have to
choose between sending messages that can be received properly only
by new software or only by old software. This is not a choice they
should have to make. They should be able to continue sending what
already works for the many cases where it works well, and do something
incompatible only for those cases where it's absolutely necessary.
This approach provides short-term benefit at long-term costs.
Software needs to be more complex, supporting two different format=x
specifications, and needs to decide which to support. I think that
will cause problems long-term.
It's important to keep in mind that sending either f=f or f-x will
not cause problems if the receiver doesn't support it (but there is
of course no benefit).