On Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 01:28:00PM +0100, Otto Stolz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote a message of 65 lines which said:
> As of November 2002, RFC 2821 is still a Proposed Standard, and RFC 821 > is the Standard Protocol (cf. <http://rfc.sunsite.dk/rfc/rfc3300.html>). For those on the mailing list not versed in IETF language, let us add that most Internet protocols are just Proposed Standard: it takes a lot of time to move to an upper level. (The RFC 2821 is more than 18 months old.) Anyway, 8bits MIME was already possible with RFC 821, the difference was just editorial (RFC 2821 is easier to read since you do not need to patch it with many following RFCs.) > "SHOULD" does definitely not mean the same thing as "MUST". > An SMTP server does not have to support 8-bit MIME mail. You're playing with words. In real life, all SMTP servers support 8-bits mail because all SMTP servers authors are aware of the issue (true, it was long and difficult to convince them all but it worked). Any counter-example? > I have seen many messages, originally in ISO-8859-1-encoded French, > that got the high-bit of every accented character chopped off, thus > replacing "�" with "i", "�" with "n", and so forth. Last time I saw such problems was something like ten years ago. It was almost never the fault of the SMTP server, but of some programs on the destination machine (or sometimes the faults of funny gateways like X400 servers, something you cannot blame on the Internet). > Of course, more and more SMTP servers support 8-bit MIME, All implementations already supports 8-bits MIME. Some servers have not been upgraded yet but it is uncommon. (Remember we are talking about a move which occurred many years ago: even if many system administrators do not upgrade their software, in the long term, machines are replaced and new software catches on.) > take the pains to transform 8-bit MIME to some transfer-encoding > supported by the receiving server. Very bad idea, BTW, since it mangles the mail, which can be a problem with applications like cryptographic signatures. I always turn it off and it was never a problem. In practice (do note I refer to the real world), all SMTP servers accept 8-bits EVEN IF THEY DO NOT ADVERTISE IT PROPERLY with the 8BITMIME option. Back to Unicode: why does nobody use UTF-7? Precisely because it is no longer necessary.
