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Re: Dreaming about replacements (was IDN (was Did anyone tellMicrosoft ye

2002-05-04 07:19:39

Quoteing moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu, on Fri, May 03, 2002 at 07:11:03PM 
-0400:
What I am thinking about is that we have an opportunity to do all of this,
as well as to fix several other problems. None of these issues alone
warrant an overhaul, but cumulatively they certainly do. 

which issues are the ones that warrant an overhaul of the message format?    

Moreover, they are actually feasible as part of an overhaul.

it's not clear that the overhaul is feasible.

I'm confused. You said that you foresaw an eventual overhaul of the
message format. If not for the reasons Eric is talking about,
for what reasons?

Sam

! Subject: Re: IDN (was Did anyone tell Microsoft yet?)
! From: Keith Moore <moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu>
! Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 13:59:24 -0400
! cc: ietf-822(_at_)imc(_dot_)org
! To: "Charles Lindsey" <chl(_at_)clw(_dot_)cs(_dot_)man(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk>
! 
! 
! > Has anybody looked into the transitional issues that would arise if Email
! > was to be moved into allowing UTF-8 headers?
! 
! yes, though perhaps not in sufficient detail.
! 
! frankly I think it would be easier to transition to a completely different
! mail format.  that is, I think that having two slightly different
! mail formats (one ascii, another utf-8) is more confusing and more
! likely to lead to interoperability problems than having two obviously
! distinct formats which require explicit translation between the two.
! 
! > Or are you resigned to the fact that we shall still be encoding headers
! > using RFC 2047 in 40 years time even though all transports and operating
! > systems will be 8bit (and even bibary) clean by that time?
! 
! please don't cite 40 years of extrapolation from current practice as
! 'the fact'.
! 
! yes, I expect that there will eventually be a transition to a new message
! format.
! 
! no, I don't think that 8bit transparency of mail transports alone is
! sufficient to warrant the pain of that transition - because zero
! additional functionality is gained beyond a small bandwidth savings,
! and the pain of having to upgrade millions of installations of hundreds
! of different mail programs (MTAs, UAs, list servers, mail filters,
! POP servers, IMAP servers, etc.) is too substantial for that minimal
! gain - which is mostly wanted for the sake of purity.  it doesn't
! lessen complexity, it increases it - because mail handling programs
! would still have to recognize the old format as well as the new one
! for many years.
! 
! what would be worth the pain of transition?  a hypothetical redesign
! of the internet email system that is both reliable (in that you can
! expect messages to be delivered with integrity) and safe to use (in
! that it won't expose your systems to security threats).
! 
! my guess is that this is at least 10-15 years away though.  there's
! just too much investment in the current infrastructure.
! 
! Keith


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