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Re: Last Call: draft-resnick-2822upd (Internet Message Format) toDraft Standard

2008-04-07 11:34:57


Pete Resnick wrote:
  >> (1) Partially restore the 822 text, stressing "private use", rather
than "experiental".

I don't think we'll be able to do this; see (3) below.
...
(3) Encourage X-headers for strictly private use, i.e., they SHOULD 
NOT be used in any context in which interchange or communication 
about independent systems is anticipated and therefore SHOULD NOT be 
registered under 3683.

I think this is DOA. There are many folks (myself included) who think 
this should not be encouraged in any way, shape, or form.


Folks,

One of the lessons of the community's 30+ years of protocol work is that 
specification details which are actually usage guidance, rather than concrete 
interoperability details, often have little impact on a global community.  The 
community formulates its own preferences.

When X- as original proposed, I thought it was marvelously clever.  I still do.

But it doesn't work.

While it does protect a privately-developed header field label from being 
preempted by a standards process, it creates a much more serious problem of 
moving from private-use to public standards and having to (try to) re-label the 
field.  This is a highly disruptive impact./

In other words, if the model is true that existing practices get standardized 
-- 
and in this realm they often are, I think -- then we need to design things to 
make the transition from private-to-public be comfortable.  Defining a 
private-use naming space runs counter to that goal.

Valuable lesson.  We should learn it.

d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net
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