Keith Moore <moore(_at_)cs(_dot_)utk(_dot_)edu> schrieb/wrote:
bullfeathers. the way MIME defines it, it's a transfer encoding.
it's the means used to convert from canonical form to on-the-wire
form. putting compression anywhere else would break MIME.
It's very likely that a new CTE would break MIME, too.
Another idea would be to create an Extended MIME standard (EMIME) that
may be used only within an confined environment. This would allow to add
new ``Extended'' CTEs, new headers such as Content-Encoding (from HTTP),
and an extension mechanism that allows further extensions.
It could go with an application/message-partial type (similar to
message/partial but with EMIME content and without the restriction that
it can't be encoded with base64 or qp), which can be used to encapsulate
EMIME entities within MIME environments.
Some rough drafts (very rough, and including some material that I don't
consider to be a good idea any longer) can be found at:
http://www.faerber.muc.de/temp/20020404-binary-posts.html
It also includes a draft for a quoted-binary Extended CTE that allows
efficient transfer of binary data over 8BITMIME environments.
Claus
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