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Changes in CWFS location in 2821bis ABNF (was: Re: Transparency)

2005-09-11 00:20:38

This seemed like the beginning of a different, although I hope
short, thread, so new subject lines for both...

--On Sunday, 11 September, 2005 05:38 +0200 Frank Ellermann
<nobody(_at_)xyzzy(_dot_)claranet(_dot_)de> wrote:

 BTW, what's the idea of
replacing all trailing CFWS by a leading CFWS in the
-00 ABNF ?  What you now have is leading CFWS everywhere
except from <From-Domain>.

In 2821 it was a trailing CFWS everywhere, no exception.
The only effect I see is that you now have:

  "from" x CFWS "by" y [opt-info] [CFWS] ";" FWS date-time

That used to be:

  "from" x CFWS "by" y CFWS [opt-info] ";" FWS date-time

The new opt-info starts with CFWS, and the old opt-info
ended with CFWS.  This is all about "no WSP before the
semicolon is now allowed", isn't it ?  OTOH you lost the
idea "any comments belong to the preceding clause".

Yep.  The short answer is that before 2821bis-00 was produced,
someone persuaded me and at least one reviewer that the change
would improve things, fix that bug, and not have any nasty side
effects (what comments belong to, if formally meaningful, is
probably a 2822 problem).   If the conclusion is that something
else should have been done, it can, of course, be fixed.

I'd have to go back to my notes to identify the responsible
parties, but it probably isn't important.
 
...
require a discussion with the ADs and the community

No WG => no AD => no required discussion with any ADs.

I really prefer to keep it that way as long as possible.
If we need somebody with a hat there's still the editor
of 2821bis, and that would be you.

It is not a question of hats.  There is a judgment call as to
whether adding in the equivalent of "Opt-info" somewhere would
be a change compatible with going to Draft or not.    Trying to
hide the change and hoping no one notices is a non-starter.  So,
if one decided to make it, the right thing to do is to find out
how the ADs feel about it and whether, when the thing emerges,
they would be willing to strongly advocate "ok to move to Draft
with this change included" with the rest of the IESG.  On the
other hand, if they had a "nope, would require a reset"
reaction, trying to convince them otherwise would be, for me,
prerequisite to changing the text.

And, by the way, "No WG" doesn't imply "No AD".   SMTP has
belonged to the applications area since there has been an IESG.
There have been a lot of discussion and complaints around the
IETF about late surprises.  While the image that discussion
conjures up involves careless or sadistic ADs ignoring issues
until the last possible moment so that they can then pounce on
them, cackling with glee, the reality is that most such
surprises result from WG or author failure to notice a potential
problem and bring it to AD attention as a question at a more
reasonable time.    The handling and timing of 2821bis, along
with a number of other technical and procedural issues, have
been discussed with the relevant ADs several times already and I
expect those discussions to continue.  I also assume that the
point at which this will shift from mailing list discussion to a
WG (or planning for one) is when (and if) Pete or I stand up and
say "gotten too complicated, need the structure of a WG to
determine consensus").  I'm inclined to put that off too, but
some suggestions have been made already that I can't imagine
trying to integrate without WG approval.

     john



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