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Re: Last Call: draft-klensin-rfc2821bis (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) to Draft Standard (1)

2007-12-11 10:32:48
Ned said most of what I wanted to, but a couple of little points:

On 12/11/07 at 1:19 AM +0100, Frank Ellermann wrote:

The spec. could note that there are mutilating^Wcomplex lists violating the MUST. It could also say SHOULD, an RFC on standards track might be a good excuse to violate this SHOULD (a SHOULD is also the shortest possible fix).

This seems like nonsense lawyering instead of doing something useful in this document. Someone who is implementing a minimal SMTP really ought to respect the "MUST be left unchanged". Yes, it would be lovely if every document referred to every other document related to it, except that it would be a nightmare of criss-crossing documents.

Furthermore, see Dave's message re: why the simple "multi-casting" lists are worth talking about in 2821bis, whereas the other sorts are not.

Admittedly RFC 2369 and 2919 don't reference [2]821, but as DS 2821bis trumps PS, and a MUST is critical by definition. If there are good excuses lets say SHOULD.

I most emphatically disagree that a Draft Standard "trumps" a Proposed Standard in this sense. A DS defines a well-understood and stable protocol. What is well understood and stable is that header changes cause damage. A PS may propose that some header changes won't cause damage and are a good thing. That's fine. It doesn't mean that the MUST in a DS "trumps" a PS doing something different.

The rest of your message is wandering into DKIM and other spam related things having nothing to do with this discussion.

pr
--
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102

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