I admit it: I'm not a fan of X- headers.
Why not just register a header in the header registry and be done with
it, rather than encouraging yet-another set of X-headers, all possibly
named differently? Why encourage the use of X- headers in a standards
track document?
For example, consider using Netnews-Gateway-Control in place of
X-Gateway, or some other such name,
2. The news-to-mail gateway adds a Netnews-Gateway-Control header
field to all messages it generates.
and then add this to the IANA Considerations section:
Header field name: Netnews-Gateway-Control
Applicable protocol: mail, netnews
Status: standard
Author/Change controller: IETF
Specification document(s): RFC XXXX (this document)
If you'd rather define a *set* of header names, to allow implementations
to pick their own names, then use this:
2. The news-to-mail gateway adds a Netnews-Gateway-Control header
field (or a header field whose name begins with
Netnews-Gateway-Control-) to all messages it generates.
and then add this to the IANA Considerations section:
Header field name: Netnews-Gateway-Control
Applicable protocol: mail, netnews
Status: standard
Author/Change controller: IETF
Specification document(s): RFC XXXX (this document)
Header field name: Netnews-Gateway-Control-* (all headers whose name
begins with "Netnews-Gateway-Control-")
Applicable protocol: mail, netnews
Status: standard
Author/Change controller: IETF
Specification document(s): RFC XXXX (this document)
My $0.02.
Tony Hansen
tony(_at_)att(_dot_)com
SM wrote:
I can see your point here, but I'm not sure the lack is particularly
important. I'd really rather not see us make further changes to USEFOR;
generally an X-* header is used for this and is adequate in practice.
Each implementation might use a different header field name. It's might
become a problem in future.
Well, this is very explicitly an example based on a specific
implementation, which happens to use an X-* header. But I can see where
this would be less than ideal. However, as above, I'm hesitant to invent
a new header for this purpose and add the necessary machinery for
registering it when there is no standardized existing practice and it's
not clear what issues are involved in picking a header field,
standardizing its format, and so forth.
Implementors will likely pick X-Gateway as you mentioned that header
name in the example. Once people start using specific headers, it's
difficult to depreciate them in favor of some standardized format.
_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
Ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf