headers
Phil Roberts | 27 Aug 2002 20:44

Nomcom call for volunteers


The members of the IESG and IAB and the IETF chair are selected
by a nominations committee made up of volunteers from the
IETF community.  The nominations committee is now in the process
of being formed and volunteers are being accepted until Sep 6.
Please see (http://www.ietf.org/nomcom/msg19765.html)
for information if you are interested in volunteering 
to be on the nominations committee.
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Claus Färber | 1 Aug 2002 15:40
Picon

Re: [B5mods] Usefor - submissions to moderated newsgroups.

Russ Allbery <rra <at> stanford.edu> schrieb/wrote:
> Now, when USEFOR started down this same path, there was an understandable
> dislike of encodings, since encoding something adds additional complexity
> and is easy to implement incorrectly.  On top of that, e-mail had some
> serious problems with picking encodings; there are not one but four
> separate e-mail encodings (base64, quoted-printable, RFC 2047, and RFC
> 2231), all of which you have to implement to have a fully compliant mail
> implementation.

Actually, there's a fifth one: The one used for international domain
names. As you can't expect MTAs and leagacy MUAs to support anything
than passing through domain names as-is, IDNs will have to appear in
mail headers and SMTP commands in the NAMEPREP-PUNYCODE-encoded form.

User agents that want to display and allow to enter these domain names
in their user-friendly form will have to implement these encoding, too.

> One signficant drawback of not breaking compatibility with mail is that we
> would have to invent yet a fifth encoding mechanism for the Newsgroups
> header (possibly reusable by other news headers) because none of the four
> that mail has come up with are suitable for that purpose for various
> reasons.

A superset of the IDN encoding (one that defines a special handling for
characters not allowed in domain names) would be a sensible candidate
for that. It could also be used for local-parts of email addresses.

I've collected some requirements for such an encoding:

. Produces the same result as IDN for all legal domain names.
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Bill Davidsen | 1 Aug 2002 15:55
Picon
Favicon

Re: [B5mods] Usefor - submissions to moderated newsgroups.

On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Jay Denebeim wrote:

> On Fri, 26 Jul 2002, Charles Lindsey wrote:
> 
> > However, we are fully aware that saying "Moderators SHOULD" is not
> > the same as saying that "Moderators WILL". Time will tell, but at the
> > least those words should ensure that people who write general purpose
> > moderbots such as STUMP do it correctly.
> 
> Just so you know, as the author of the second most popular 'general
> purpose' modbot I'm planning to do it correctly.  In this case that means
> bounce the encapsulated messages.  Oh, and another thing, there is no such
> thing as a 'general purpose' modbot (other than the one I was writing
> awhile back) even STUMP has to be taylored individually to every newsgroup
> it's used on.  That means that old copies of it won't get updated so the
> current default behavior is what you're stuck with.
> 
> IOW your new format messages will bounce until someone technical does
> something, this is not a resource available to many moderation sites.  As
> long as you're okay with breaking most moderation sites, I guess that's
> your perogative.  Don't expect your 'standard' to be widely adopted though
> installing a version of a news server that causes all your users who post
> to moderated groups to scream is not going to be a popular option with
> almost all newsadmins.

Sounds like you are saying that you didn't get your way on waht the 
standard says so you're going to try to do your best to make things hard 
for the moderators who use your software. Get map, the USA is not the 
only country on the planet, the planet doesn't revolve around it. There 
are going to be more and more non-ASCII group names, subject, and other
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Charles Lindsey | 1 Aug 2002 15:51
Picon
Picon

Final Last Last Last Call

The recent discussion on the moderators' list has revealed some
opposition from Jay (who will never be convinced whatever we do)
together with much support for encapsulation (as an ultimate Good Thing)
from members of this list.

I think this shows that our general approach now has consensus on this
list. There are differing views on which approach (encapsulation vs
encoding) will or should succeed in the long term, but our draft is more
or less neutral on that issue.

I have therefore had a final check through the document and prepared
what I hope will be the final draft. It is my intention to put this
up as an internet draft next Tuesday, and at the same time to ask our
chairman to submit it for IETF Last Call.

IF ANY MEMBER OF THIS LIST HAS OBJECTIONS TO THIS PROCEDURE, LET HIM
SPEAK UP NOW.

The full diffs follow.The changes are mostly mind-bogglingly boring.
Fixing of typos and incsonsistencies in terminology.

The only matters of substance are two further consequentials of our
recent changes. One is a reference to the new 5.2.2 encoding in
section 6.9 (Posted-And-Mailed) and the other is in section 6.21.2.2
(message/rfc822). That used to describe various problems in sending a
message/rfc822 over a 7bit channel. Since we have now written extensive
new wording in section 8.8.1 (Duties of an Outgoing Gateway) on this
topic, I have replaced that wording with a pointer to 8.8.1, thus saving
quite a bit of verbiage. I have also taken the opportunity to include a
reference to the obsolete message/news in section 6.21.6.2 (since that
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 21 comments |
headers
Bill Davidsen | 1 Aug 2002 16:03
Picon
Favicon

Re: [B5mods] Usefor - submissions to moderated newsgroups.

On Sat, 27 Jul 2002, Nick Boalch wrote:

> On 26 Jul 2002, clive <at> demon.net (Clive D.W. Feather) wrote:
> 
> > > It's not that it's difficult it's that news headers were specifically
> > > made  to be like mail headers.  They should be interchangeable and I will
> > > have  no part in breaking that.
> > 
> > Then I suggest you get RFC 2822 dragged into the 20th century. Or learn
> > that very few languages - not including English - can be correctly written
> > in ASCII.
> 
> For what it's worth, I thoroughly agree. Our systems for *.answers won't
> currently deal well with encapsulated submissions -- but in that case they 
> need to be upgraded in the cause of progress. I don't think we, as
> moderators, should try to hold back the development of Usenet purely because
> new standards will introduce some problems with existing software.

I'm not a moderator (was from about 88-92) so I have a question about 
moderator platforms. Is it safe to assume that the majority of moderators 
use either a UNIX-like o/s or Windows? It looks like it's time to 
generate a new moderator tool, are these platforms the majority target?

--

-- 
   -bill davidsen (davidsen <at> prodigy.com)
"The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the
 last possible moment - but no longer"  -me
Permalink | Reply | 1 comment |
headers
Bill Davidsen | 1 Aug 2002 16:06
Picon
Favicon

Re: [B5mods] Usefor - submissions to moderated newsgroups.

On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Dave Barr wrote:

> I suggest you read the usefor archives.  There many of us in USEFOR who 
> are at least as staunch as you with regards to keeping the mail and 
> Usenet header standards compatible.  There are many evils we must 
> contend with (the primary evil is mail's stubborn refusal to allow 8-bit 
> headers), and being totally anti-encapulsation will unfortunately win 
> you few arguments.
> 
> --Dave
> 
There's a great quote I can't find at the moment, I believe it's 
"standing astride the path of progress loudly crying 'halt'" if memory 
serves.

--

-- 
   -bill davidsen (davidsen <at> prodigy.com)
"The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the
 last possible moment - but no longer"  -me
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Henry Spencer | 1 Aug 2002 16:10

Re: [B5mods] Usefor - submissions to moderated newsgroups.

On Mon, 29 Jul 2002, Bernie Cosell wrote:
> Right.  But surely SOMEONE involved with the email world has noticed that 
> 7-bit-ascii-only is a problem??  Why not let THEM solve it, and then just 
> use the same mechanism for news [just as with 1036/822]?

That was our original intent.  Unfortunately, the email standards world is
showing very little interest in solving this any time soon, and we have a
choice between putting our work on the shelf -- probably for years,
perhaps indefinitely -- until they get their act together, or doing the
best we can right now to meet at least *our* users' needs.

Our news-on-the-wire solution -- use of full 8 bits for UTF-8 -- is the
way the email *implementation* world is headed, as best we can tell.  But
we cannot propose that as the full solution, including use for cases when
news is transmitted by email (e.g. to moderators), because it flatly
violates the email *standards* and would be rejected by IETF. 

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       henry <at> spsystems.net
Permalink | Reply | 28 comments |
headers
Bill Davidsen | 1 Aug 2002 16:24
Picon
Favicon

Re: [B5mods] Usefor - submissions to moderated newsgroups.

On Sun, 28 Jul 2002, Bernie Cosell wrote:

> What's odd is that I'd have thought that email would have the same 
> problems with 8-bit stuff as news does --- surely non-ASCII folk would 
> like to have their *actual* names in the 'From' and 'To' fields, to be 
> able to set up proper "Subjects".  Even relatively minor things like 
> being able to properly spell their Organization: name...

Bernie, my read is that you don't have a problem until you admit you have 
a problem, therefore to avoid having problems with 8-bit headers mail has 
ignored it to date. Actually there seem to be a fair number of deployed 
mail systems which don't handle 8-bit text, either.

--

-- 
   -bill davidsen (davidsen <at> prodigy.com)
"The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the
 last possible moment - but no longer"  -me
Permalink | Reply | 0 comments |
headers
Henry Spencer | 1 Aug 2002 16:45

Re: Final Last Last Last Call

On Thu, 1 Aug 2002, Charles Lindsey wrote:
> !    In the case where such an encapsulated news article has Content-
> !    Transfer-Encoding "8bit" or where its headers contain any UTF8-xtra-
> !    chars (2.4.2), it might not be possible to transport it my email

I think that should be "by email". :-)

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       henry <at> spsystems.net
Permalink | Reply | 1 comment |
headers
Bill Davidsen | 1 Aug 2002 16:45
Picon
Favicon

Re: [B5mods] Usefor - submissions to moderated newsgroups.

On Wed, 31 Jul 2002, Russ Allbery wrote:

> > See "2.2. Header Fields" in RFC 2822."
> 
> > So we either deviate or encapsulate.
> 
> No.  That section does not support your contention.  For example, the
> %-escaped form of Newsgroups is entirely compliant with that section.

The problem is that it doesn't properly address the whole header issue, 
the "%" in a "To:" address is parsed by many mailers, such that
  joe%nosuch.com <at> real.com
    -is treated as-
   <at> real.com:joe <at> nosuch.com

and the message is relayed to nosuch.com via the mailer at real.com. Or 
more likely "relaying denied" at real.com these days.

If it weren't for that the % would be acceptable if not ideal. It works 
in all non-address headers AFAIK, if "works" means isn't rejected or 
mangled.

> -- 
> Russ Allbery (rra <at> stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
> 

--

-- 
   -bill davidsen (davidsen <at> prodigy.com)
"The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the
 last possible moment - but no longer"  -me
(Continue reading)

Permalink | Reply | 17 comments |

Gmane