Soencer,
thanks for your review!
Some comments... I'm not addressing editorials...
Spencer Dawkins skrev:
This document specifies an experimental variant of Internet mail that
permits the use of Unicode encoded in UTF-8 [RFC3629], rather than
ASCII, as the base form for Internet email header fields. This form
is permitted in transmission, if authorized by the SMTP extension
specified in [EAI-SMTP-extension] or by other transport mechanisms
Technical: isn't this s/transport/transfer/?
Actually the term used in most email discussions is "transport mechanism".
I don't know why the usage is like that, but it is.
capable of processing it.
1.2. Relation to other standards
This document also updates [RFC2822] and MIME, and the fact that an
experimental specification updates a standards-track spec means that
people who participate in the experiment have to consider those
standards updated.
Process: The ID Tracker is showing this draft in Last Call status, but I
can't find (in the archive or in my personal folders) any Last Call
announcement, which I was looking for, in order to check how Chris
explained
the downref at Last Call time - I'm expecting that it will be quite
entertaining. Has anyone else seen such an announcement on IETF Announce?
Note: Intended status is Experimental.
The subject line of the Last Call was
Last Call: draft-ietf-eai-smtpext (SMTP extension for internationalized
email address) to Experimental RFC
and covered 2 drafts; this may be why you did not find it.
Use of this SMTP extension helps prevents the introduction of such
messages into message stores that might misinterpret, improperly
display, or mangle such messages. It should be noted that using an
ESMTP extension does not prevent transfering email messages with
UTF-8 header fields to other systems that use the email format for
messages and that may not be upgraded, such as unextended POP and
IMAP servers. Changes to these protocols to handle UTF-8 header
fields are addressed in related documents.
technical: I would expect to see references to the "related documents"
here... if they haven't been written yet, just saying "will be addressed"
would make sense.
They are referenced in RFC 4952 (which is the overarching definition) as
"works in progress". We can certainly add references here too; I think
there's no doubt that there will be 2 documents, no less and no more, at
this point.
3. Terminology
Unless otherwise noted, all terms used here are defined in [RFC2821]
,[RFC2822] , [RFC4952], or [EAI-SMTP-extension].
nit: should not have spaces before commas here.
The key words "MUST", "SHALL", "REQUIRED", "SHOULD", "RECOMMENDED",
and "MAY" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
[RFC2119].
4. Changes on Message Header Fields
This protocol does NOT change the definition of header field names.
technical: I'm confused here. Is this text saying "does not change header
field names"? I would have thought this specification is exactly changing
the definition of header field names...
It does not change the definition of header field NAMES (which remain
ASCII), but changes the definition of header field BODIES (which used to
be ASCII, but are now UTF-8).
That is, only the bodies of header fields are allowed to have UTF-8
characters; the rules in [RFC2822] for header field names are not
changed.
And this sentence is saying that. How can we express this more clearly?
To permit UTF-8 characters in field values, the header definition in
[RFC2822] must be extended to support new format. The following ABNF
is defined to substitute those definition in [RFC2822].
This specification does not require a specific normalization of the
Unicode strings, but recommends that good practices for normalization
be followed. See [Net-UTF8] for a discussion on recommended
clarity: s/discussion/guidance/
practices for normalizing text before sending.
technical: this sounds like [Net-UTF8] is on the border between
Normative and Informative. You have it under Informative, which may be
fine, just please consider whether you expect someone using this
specification to also use [Net-UTF8] in order to interoperate.
we have had long discussions on this.... we do expect relays to relay
mail whether they follow the Net-UTF8 recommendations or not, but we do
expect that people will have less surprises if they follow the
recommendations, just like they will have less surprises if they don't
assume that MailBox(_at_)host and mailbox(_at_)host are considered different.
4.5. Trace field syntax
The "Return-Path" header provides the email return address in the
mail delivery. Thus, it MUST able to carry UTF8 addresses (see the
technical: this isn't a 2119 MUST, as written (any requirement would
be on
an implementation, not on a header). I'd suggest changing to "is
augmented
to carry", which matches the phrasing you use for other headers below.
I think your suggestion is reasonable here.
revised syntax of <angle-addr> in Section 4.4 of this document).
This will not break the rule of trace fied integrity, because it is
technical: I'm not a mail expert, but is "trace fied integrity"
correct? This draft has the only use of this term that Google finds on
the IETF website ;-)
It should be "trace field integrity", of course...
4.6. message/global
technical: "message/global" doesn't seem particularly obvious. If this is
really Experimental, I'd suggest message/rfcXXXX, or something that gives
people more of a clue about what the subtype means.
Another long discussion. WG consensus was to go with message/global; in
reality, if the experiment succeeds, we'll never get to change it; if
the experiment fails.... well, we've lost another nice name...
Interoperability considerations: The media type provides
functionality similar to the message/rfc822 content type for email
messages with international email headers. When there is a need
to embed or return such content in another message, there is
generally an option to use this media type and leave the content
unchanged or downconvert the content to message/rfc822. Both of
these choices will interoperate with the installed base, but with
different properties. Systems unaware of international headers
will typically treat a message/global body part as an unknown
attachment, while they will understand the structure of a message/
rfc822. However, systems which understand message/global will
provide functionality superior to the result of a down-conversion
to message/rfc822. The most interoperable choice depends on the
deployed software.
technical: not sure what the last sentence actually means. "We don't know
what the most interoperable choice will be"? Text in the same
paragraph says
both choices are interoperable. If that text is correct, I don't
understand
what you're saying here.
Would it be better to say "the most useful choice"? It's likely to be
the difference between a compliant MUA offering to dump the message to a
file and displaying it as a message...
Published specification: RFC XXXX
nit: it's actually safer to put a note saying "Note to RFC Editor:
please replace XXXX with the RFC number when assigned" in the draft
when you use this mechanism.
Macintosh file type code(s): A uniform type identifier (UTI) of
"public.utf8-email-message" is suggested. This conforms to
"public.message" and "public.composite-content" but does not
necessarily conform to "public.utf8-plain-text".
technical: out of my league here, but "does not necessarily conform to"
doesn't seem helpful. Could you provide any details that would help the
reader understand why not?
5. Security Considerations
Because UTF-8 often requires several octets to encode a single
character, internationalized local parts may cause mail addresses to
become longer. As specified in [RFC2822], each line of characters
MUST be no more 998 octets, excluding the CRLF.
clarity: s/CRLF/CRLF, even when UTF-8 characters are being used/
Because internationalized local parts may cause email addresses to be
longer, processes which parse, store, or handle email addresses or
local parts must take extra care not to overflow buffers, truncate
addresses, exceed storage allotments, or, when comparing, fail to use
the entire length.
technical: this is great advice, but I don't understand how UTF-8 changes
the situation. If you aren't changing the 998-octet requirement, software
that breaks for UTF-8 would also break for ASCII headers with the same
octet
length.
If someone uses another representation internally (for instance UTF-16),
and has a 998-character buffer, that will sometimes fit into 998 octets
of UTF-8, and sometimes not. The same goes in the other direction....
I'm sure others will think of other cases.
In this specification, a user could provide an ASCII alternative
address for a non-ASCII address. However, it is possible these two
address go to different mailboxes, or even different persons. This
might not be a protocol problem, but instead be the user's personal
choice or administration policy or even be a deliberate attempt to
deceive or cause confusion.
technical: I'm not sure what the security consideration is. I'm not
sure how a sender could detect whether a receiver IS deliberately
attempting to deceive or cause confusion, or what a sender is supposed
to do if this condition is detected
clarity: I'm guessing, but if the last sentence was replaced with "This
configuration may be based on a user's personal choice, or based on
administration policy. We recognize that if ASCII and non-ASCII email is
delivered to two different destinations, based on MTA capability, this
may
violate the principle of least astonishment, but this is not a "protocol
problem".", it might be clearer.
6. IANA considerations
IANA is requested to register the MIME type message/global, using the
registration data in section Section 4.6.
technical: OK, but it would be clearer if the registration data made
sense
when it moves to an IANA registry. There are places where the
registration
refers to "Section 5" for security considerations, for example. These
should
probably appear as "Section 5 of RFC XXXX", with a note to replace
XXXX with
the RFC number, when it's assigned. The author and contact information
also reference sections of this draft.
I think that's editorial..... and I agree....
7. Acknowledgements
Most of the content of this document is provided by John C Klensin.
Also some significant comments and suggestions were received from
Charles H. Lindsey, Kari Hurtta, Pete Resnick, Alexey Melnikov, Chris
Newman, Yangwoo KO, Yoshiro YONEYA, and other members of the JET team
and were incorporated into the document. The editor is much great
thanks to their contribution sincerely.
Nit: "The editor sincerely thanks them for their contributions."
9.2. Informative References
[Hoffman-utf8-headers]
Hoffman, P., "SMTP Service Extensions or Transmission of
Headers in UTF-8 Encoding",
draft-hoffman-utf8headers-00.txt (work in progress),
December 2003.
Technical: I know this is how we refer to Internet Drafts, but "2003"
isn't
"work in progress". You might s/work in progress/expired Internet
Draft/, or
(probably better) simply move the rest of the full citation to the
Acknowledgements section - it didn't seem like you really expected
anyone to
actually refer to this reference, anyway :-)
It's a part of the history, and we can probably safely lose it.
[RFC1652] Klensin, J., Freed, N., Rose, M., Stefferud, E., and D.
Crocker, "SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIMEtransport",
RFC 1652, July 1994.
Technical: I'd think RFC 1652 would be normative - do you have to use the
service extension to transmit utf8headers?
Nope. The header extension draft is transport-neutral; by itself, it
doesn't transport anything. The SMTP extension draft has a normative
dependency on 1652...
Hope this helped....
Harald
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