Hi Peter,
I deleted iesg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org from the reply, as they are not directly
responsible for maintenance of RFC that you are quoting. I think ietf-
822(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org is a better mailing list for this discussion (See
<https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-822> to
subscribe).ietf-smtp(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org might also be of interest, as SMTP
behaviour is
discussed there.
On Thu, Jul 19, 2018, at 12:24 PM, Peter Occil wrote:
RFC 2369 sec. 2 currently says:
MTAs MUST NOT insert whitespace within the brackets [contained
in list header fields], but client applications should treat any>
whitespace, that might be inserted by poorly behaved MTAs,
as characters to ignore.
To the extent the first clause applies to software generating messages
that might contain list header fields, usually for the purpose of
first sending them, this makes it harder for software to encode
message header fields in a generic manner rather than having to deal
with special cases like the list header fields, since, among other
things, such software may seek to comply with line length limitations
in RFC 5322 by folding long lines in accordance with that RFC.>
If the cited clause does apply to such software, a suggested change to
that statement in a future revision of that RFC might be that
whitespace "SHOULD NOT" be inserted between the brackets, but that
software generating (as opposed to retransmitting) messages containing
list header fields might choose to do so due to line length
limitations in Internet messages or because of the need or desire to
handle messages generically regardless of what header fields it has.
(But I note that this change should not encourage MTAs to disobey SMTP
or other transport protocols they may implement.)>
--Peter
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