ietf-822
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Why we're in this mess

2003-01-14 19:08:48

Keith ``7 bits forever!'' Moore writes:
your naivete is showing even worse than usual -- about what was
technically feasible at the time, what was politically feasible at the
time, what would interoperate with the installed base at the time

The ietf-smtp archives aren't a secret, Keith.

We can all see that, early in 1991, Robert Ullmann and Andre Pirard and
others proposed requiring 8-bit-clean mail software. This requirement
should have been adopted.

We can all see that the only objection to that requirement was the claim
that 8-bit support would take a long time to be deployed. You were aware
of the massive long-term benefits; you simply refused to plan ahead.

For example, Paul Vixie said that he had some seven-year-old sendmail
binaries, and concluded ``with near-certainty'' that ``any changes to
the SMTP spec will take at least a decade to reach 90% of the critical
server population.''

In fact, 8-bit _body_ support was deployed much more quickly than that,
and if you hadn't screwed up in 1991 then complete 8-bit support would
have come along with 8-bit body support. But the issue is not the exact
number of years---the issue is how amazingly shortsighted you were.

Similarly, UTF-8 support should have been required in all mail software
when RFC 2277 was published five years ago. Instead, according to your
so-called ``standards,'' it's perfectly acceptable---in 2003---to deploy
a mailer that throws away everything other than ASCII.

Aren't you even slightly ashamed of yourself?

---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics,
Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago