ietf-smime
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Re: Attempt to clear off the open issues

1997-07-25 11:11:30
At 8:35 PM -0700 7/24/97, Dave Crocker / IMC wrote:
John,

At 04:12 PM 7/24/97 -0700, John Gardiner Myers wrote:

An application/mime can transport a binary MIME object.  It is the first

      It can??  I thought c-t-e binary wasn't currently part of the
standard, at
this point?  In any event, please elaborate.  How can it do that?

'cause we didn't say it couldn't be binary.  I suggest we say it can't be
binary, and that we say the default CTE is 7-bit.


The application/mime document is also entirely missing an explanation of
the canonical encoding implications of the type.  The contents of an
application/mime are in canonical (CRLF-separated) form, and this must
be made clear.  Many MIME parsers deal with MIME entities which have
had  CRLF sequences encoded into a local form of line break.  Such MIME

      Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with reminding the spec
reader that
objects being exchanged over the Internet are required to be in network
standard form.  On the other hand it would be interesting to see an
implementor try to send off a locally-encoded object -- inside app/mime or
any other standardized form -- and claim that recipients should be able to
handle it.

It would probably work UNIX sendmail to UNIX sendmail lulling implementors
into unconscious confusion. I agree we need some text about this issue.
It's not big deal for DOS/Windows but it's subtle for UNIX.

BTW, I didn't notice the double wrap thing before. Aside from sounding like
toothpaste ("extra protection against decay"), it seems like we're
admitting that people are going to break the unwrapping rules. I would
rather see the unwrapping rules be very clear and that we don't give anyone
an out when we use the standard to wack them over the head for breaking the
unwrapping rules. The double wrap is kind of admission that the rules won't
always work.  It also makes the implementation much more complicated. I'd
like to take it out.

LL




d/
--------------------
Dave Crocker
Internet Mail Consortium                               +1 408 246 8253
675 Spruce Dr.                                    fax: +1 408 249 6205
Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA              info(_at_)imc(_dot_)org , 
http://www.imc.org

Member, interim Policy Oversight Committee     http://www.gtld-mou.org