John C Klensin wrote:
If I understand the question, you are saying that an I-D
proposal can update and even go as far as change an RFC and my
"assumption" that it can not is an incorrect assumption?
An I-D cannot. But the current flavor of SMTP, from RFC1425
forward, is rather carefully designed, and I hope clearly
documented, so that a standardized extension that is offered by
the server and invoked by the client, may change just about any
aspect of SMTP behavior.
> ..
> ..
So I think your implied assumption that text in an RFC saying
"this is forbidden" prevents doing exactly the same thing via an
extension is incorrect in two respects.
Ok, this is all confusing to me which basically means, I like to keep
things simple. :-)
At this point, maybe Hansen had the best (personal hat on)
advice:
"don't do anything now that would prevent such an
extension from being written."
And no such thing has been proposed. By anyone.
Man, I am not trying to fight you guys. I don't know why you wrote that
or what you mean by it.
Hansen wrote:
<personal hat on>
Yes, I have to be careful about expressing both my personal opinions and
process opinions. Hopefully I've been succeeding at doing that.
Personally, I think it would be very useful and important to get an
extension I-D written up for this case. That's why I said previously "I
could easily see an extension I-D being written that defines and blesses
its usage. So I wouldn't want to deny its possibility within 2821bis."
This can be translated as: don't do anything now that would prevent such
an extension from being written.
</personal hat on>
Borrowing the old Chinese proverbial "Be careful for what you wish for",
maybe at this point I agree with him personal version of this issue.
Don't do anything, leaving it alone might be the best thing here.
--
HLS