Subject: [EAI] draft-ietf-eai-smtpext-02.txt ( draft-ietf-eai-utf8headers-02.txt )

From: Kari Hurtta <[email-masked]>
Date: 26 Oct 2006 16:21:10 +0300

draft-ietf-eai-smtpext-02.txt:

|  Assuming that the server advertises UTF8SMTP and 8BITMIME, and at
|   least one non-ASCII address, with or without ALT-ADDRESS, the precise
|   interpretation of these parameters on the MAIL command is:
|   1.  Headers are in UTF-8, body parts are in ASCII.
|   2.  Headers are in UTF-8, some or all body parts contain 8-bit line-
|       oriented data.
|   3.  Headers are in UTF-8, some or all body parts contain binary data
|       without restriction as to line lengths or delimiters.

So model is following:

   Indication for internationalized email is
      Header-Type: UTF8

   header field on mail DATA.

let's compare this to model of 8-bit MIME email model:

   Indication for 8-bit (MIME)  emila is
      BODY=BITMIME

   parameter on MAIL -command

   However there is also
      Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

   header field on mail DATA,  but 8BITMIME extension did
   not select that for indication.

So perhaps it make sense to compare what are differences
on these two situations?

Question is: 

   Why 8BITMIME needed BODY=BITMIME parameter for MAIL -command
   when same information is available on email header
   fields ?

   Why UTF8SMTP does not need parameter for MAIL -command,
   but instead is relying email header field about that.

I do not say that there is something wrong,
but I ask reasoning of selections.

/ Kari Hurtta

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---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 12:40:59 +0100

> but I ask reasoning of selections.

Maybe because UTF8SMTP is a special case of 8BITMIME as far as 
SMTP (envelope) is concerned.  Normally MTAs dont't care about
what they transport as long as they can add a timestamp line to
it.  An MDA could remove old Return-Paths and add its own, but
for that exercise it also only needs to find a header and the
relevant Return-Path header fields.

And of course they need to find the dot at the end of data, for
that's enough if they can read lines (=> limit 998) terminated
by CRLF, no matter what octets there are elsewhere, UTF-8 or
other charsets, 8BITMIME works as expected.

Frank