On 2001-08-02 17:25:49 +0100, Ian Bell wrote:
If utf-8 is allowed in Comments then RFC2015bis will need to be
amended (if it hasn't got through last call yet) to tell clients
what to do with it before sending.
It has gone through last call.
Double encoding is not a sensible option
No, of course not.
- either say RFC2015bis clients MUST NOT include comments lines
with utf-8 characters, or say that RFC2015bis clients MAY drop
utf-8 comments lines, but if they don't they MUST RFC2047 encode
them.
This is plain silliness - just like double encoding. We are talking
about a comment which is:
- hardly ever read by users, because it's not even on the
application layer
- mostly used to advertise the program which is used for generating
it to those who wonder what kind of "data junk" they are
receiving
- is not cryptographically protected
- and, when using utf-8 text, breaks assumptions which have been
made for years now, and, in fact, breaks the whole point ASCII
armor was designed for
The discussion we are having here is basically equivalent to
discussing internationalization of SMTP greetings or User-Agent
headers.
If you ask me, I'd just suggest to drop the Comment armor header.
Since that's probably not an option, castrate it to 7bit characters.
--
Thomas Roessler http://log.does-not-exist.org/