John C Klensin
2004-01-30 17:41:12 UTC
Hi. This draft is an update on the SMTP approach to mailbox
internationalization.
Three things:
* I am copying the SMTP list on this because everything
is getting connected to everything else, as my on-list
discussion with Nathaniel about the "trace fields in the
envelope" proposal illustrates. Please, to preserve
everyone's sanity, do not start parallel discussions or
cross-post -- this one is clearly an IMAA issue, at
least for historical reasons.
* There is one more proposal I-D coming in this series.
As a one-line summary, it outlines ("specifies" would be
too strong at this stage, but that is the intent) the
encapsulation model that this draft suggests for
downgrading.
* Very high-level summary of changes from the -01
version: I have become convinced that, if we are going
to have an internationalized structure for email --not
merely a collection of kludges and workarounds-- we are
going to need to make some rather basic changes. They
include SMTP extensions for i18n addresses and alternate
addresses and UTF-8 headers as well as UTF-8 headers, in
some form, themselves. I've picked up on Paul's UTF-8
header proposal because it seems sensible and nothing
else is on the table, but the proposal announced below
eliminates the need for alternate address headers and
all of the mucking around in the message payload by MTAs
they imply. And I'm convinced that we should have
_one_ header to cover this rather than a collection.
I.e., the model is that one is internationalized or not,
rather than one in which internationalization is done
piecemeal and incrementally, with all of the profiling,
multiplicative cases, and long-term cruft that would
imply.
Please do not react to what you think is in this proposal
without reading it or, especially based only on what you think
it is about from reading the above. That is a waste of your
time and that of everyone on the list, as previous rounds of
such discussions amply demonstrate.
best,
john
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Friday, 30 January, 2004 11:49 -0500
From: Internet-***@ietf.org
To: IETF-Announce
Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-klensin-emailaddr-i18n-02.txt
A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line
Internet-Drafts directories.
Title : Internationalization of Email Addresses
Author(s) : J. Klensin
Filename : draft-klensin-emailaddr-i18n-02.txt
Pages : 30
Date : 2004-1-29
Internationalization of electronic mail addresses is, if
anything, more important than the already-completed effort for
domain names. In most of the contexts in which they are used,
domain names can be hidden within or as part of various types of
references. Email addresses, by contrast, are crucial: use of
names of people or organizations as, or as part of, the email
local part is, for obvious reasons, a well-established tradition
on the network. Preventing people from spelling their names
correctly is, in the long term, inexcusable. At the same time,
email addresses pose a number of special problems -- they are
more difficult than simple domain names in some respects, but
actually easier in others. This document discusses the issues
with internationalization of email addresses, explains why some
obvious approaches are incompatible with the definitions and use
of Internet mail, and proposes a solution that is likely to
serve users and the network well for the long term.
A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-klensin-emailaddr-i18n
-02.txt
To remove yourself from the IETF Announcement list, send a
message to ietf-announce-request with the word unsubscribe in
the body of the message.
Internet-Drafts are also available by anonymous FTP. Login with
the username "anonymous" and a password of your e-mail address.
After logging in, type "cd internet-drafts" and then
"get draft-klensin-emailaddr-i18n-02.txt".
A list of Internet-Drafts directories can be found in
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html
or ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf/1shadow-sites.txt
Internet-Drafts can also be obtained by e-mail.
Send a message to:
***@ietf.org.
In the body type:
"FILE /internet-drafts/draft-klensin-emailaddr-i18n-02.txt".
NOTE: The mail server at ietf.org can return the document in
MIME-encoded form by using the "mpack" utility. To use this
feature, insert the command "ENCODING mime" before the "FILE"
command. To decode the response(s), you will need "munpack" or
a MIME-compliant mail reader. Different MIME-compliant mail
readers exhibit different behavior, especially when dealing with
"multipart" MIME messages (i.e. documents which have been split
up into multiple messages), so check your local documentation on
how to manipulate these messages.
Below is the data which will enable a MIME compliant mail reader
implementation to automatically retrieve the ASCII version of the
Internet-Draft.
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
internationalization.
Three things:
* I am copying the SMTP list on this because everything
is getting connected to everything else, as my on-list
discussion with Nathaniel about the "trace fields in the
envelope" proposal illustrates. Please, to preserve
everyone's sanity, do not start parallel discussions or
cross-post -- this one is clearly an IMAA issue, at
least for historical reasons.
* There is one more proposal I-D coming in this series.
As a one-line summary, it outlines ("specifies" would be
too strong at this stage, but that is the intent) the
encapsulation model that this draft suggests for
downgrading.
* Very high-level summary of changes from the -01
version: I have become convinced that, if we are going
to have an internationalized structure for email --not
merely a collection of kludges and workarounds-- we are
going to need to make some rather basic changes. They
include SMTP extensions for i18n addresses and alternate
addresses and UTF-8 headers as well as UTF-8 headers, in
some form, themselves. I've picked up on Paul's UTF-8
header proposal because it seems sensible and nothing
else is on the table, but the proposal announced below
eliminates the need for alternate address headers and
all of the mucking around in the message payload by MTAs
they imply. And I'm convinced that we should have
_one_ header to cover this rather than a collection.
I.e., the model is that one is internationalized or not,
rather than one in which internationalization is done
piecemeal and incrementally, with all of the profiling,
multiplicative cases, and long-term cruft that would
imply.
Please do not react to what you think is in this proposal
without reading it or, especially based only on what you think
it is about from reading the above. That is a waste of your
time and that of everyone on the list, as previous rounds of
such discussions amply demonstrate.
best,
john
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Friday, 30 January, 2004 11:49 -0500
From: Internet-***@ietf.org
To: IETF-Announce
Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-klensin-emailaddr-i18n-02.txt
A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line
Internet-Drafts directories.
Title : Internationalization of Email Addresses
Author(s) : J. Klensin
Filename : draft-klensin-emailaddr-i18n-02.txt
Pages : 30
Date : 2004-1-29
Internationalization of electronic mail addresses is, if
anything, more important than the already-completed effort for
domain names. In most of the contexts in which they are used,
domain names can be hidden within or as part of various types of
references. Email addresses, by contrast, are crucial: use of
names of people or organizations as, or as part of, the email
local part is, for obvious reasons, a well-established tradition
on the network. Preventing people from spelling their names
correctly is, in the long term, inexcusable. At the same time,
email addresses pose a number of special problems -- they are
more difficult than simple domain names in some respects, but
actually easier in others. This document discusses the issues
with internationalization of email addresses, explains why some
obvious approaches are incompatible with the definitions and use
of Internet mail, and proposes a solution that is likely to
serve users and the network well for the long term.
A URL for this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-klensin-emailaddr-i18n
-02.txt
To remove yourself from the IETF Announcement list, send a
message to ietf-announce-request with the word unsubscribe in
the body of the message.
Internet-Drafts are also available by anonymous FTP. Login with
the username "anonymous" and a password of your e-mail address.
After logging in, type "cd internet-drafts" and then
"get draft-klensin-emailaddr-i18n-02.txt".
A list of Internet-Drafts directories can be found in
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html
or ftp://ftp.ietf.org/ietf/1shadow-sites.txt
Internet-Drafts can also be obtained by e-mail.
Send a message to:
***@ietf.org.
In the body type:
"FILE /internet-drafts/draft-klensin-emailaddr-i18n-02.txt".
NOTE: The mail server at ietf.org can return the document in
MIME-encoded form by using the "mpack" utility. To use this
feature, insert the command "ENCODING mime" before the "FILE"
command. To decode the response(s), you will need "munpack" or
a MIME-compliant mail reader. Different MIME-compliant mail
readers exhibit different behavior, especially when dealing with
"multipart" MIME messages (i.e. documents which have been split
up into multiple messages), so check your local documentation on
how to manipulate these messages.
Below is the data which will enable a MIME compliant mail reader
implementation to automatically retrieve the ASCII version of the
Internet-Draft.
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------