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Pine over-encodes files (came from Bug#932)



Package: pine
Version: 3.91-4

Kai Henningsen writes:
> dwarf@polaris.net (Dale Scheetz):
> > On Sat, 17 Feb 1996, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > > MIME has been designed so that it is possible to attach plain text
> > > files in ways that are readable to non-MIME-aware user agents.
> >
> > The proper way to do this in pine is NOT with MIME. Use ^R if you wish to
> > include plain text in your message.

No, the proper way to do this is to use a multipart/mixed message
whose second part has type text/plain and content-transfer-encoding
7bit (or quoted-printable, *if* necessary).

> If pine does not *allow* non-encoded MIME multipart messages, then pine is  
> *severely* broken.

It does not.  There is no way to generate a mulipart message whose
second (and later?) parts are in something other than base64.

Furthermore, when the user `just wants to send a file' the default
should be for the file to be sent UNencoded (ie, with MIME headers but
with Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit).  This is so because the
proportion of users with MIME-capable mail user agents which can
decode a base64 or quoted-printable file is smaller than the
proportion of users who are not behind mail gateways so braindead that
they mangle 7-bit US-ASCII.

I consider this a bug, and I'm reporting it separately so that it can
be discussed without confusion.  I'd appreciate it if the package
maintainer would hold off closing this bug out of hand while the
readers of debian-devel establish a consensus on the desirability of
various behaviours.  If it is decided that the behaviour should be
changed and the package maintainer is not able or willing to make the
necessary changes the report should be forwarded to the Pine
developers.

Ian.


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