On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 06:59:59PM -0800, Paul Johnson wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 09, 2003 at 01:02:46PM -0500, Daniel Barclay wrote:
> > > >(By the way, where is that message header defined? I just searched
> > > >through all the IETF RfCs but couldn't find it.)
> > >
> > > Whatever the RFCs say, ...
> >
> > Wait a minute. You can't just start demanding arbitrary behavior of
> > other people.
>
> So why are you trying to? RFCs reflect common practice.
Not to mention that there are different types of RFCs. I could
strangle people who say "I don't have to follow that, it's just a
"Request For Comments".
I don't have the list in front of me, I'm tired and top lazy to go
look it up, but there are at least four kinds of RFCs:
1) Informationl: tells you stuff you (may) need to know. Does not
dictate behavior.
2,3) draft standard, proposed standard. I may have these turned
around so I'll mention them together. These documents are on the road
to standardom, or not (the document may be rejected).
4) Standard. This document is authoritative, and must be followed.
Mail-Followup-To: was a proposed in an SMTP working group. IIRC it
was rejected by the working group after some debate. However, many in
the Internet community have decided to implement M-F-T for mailiong
lists and thus it is considered (by those people) a Common Practice.
To be fair, there are people who disagree with M-F-T, sometiomes with
technical points but more frequently with ad hominem attacks against
the proposer, Dan Bernstein. Needless to say, these people have their
heads way up their asses [1].
If everyone waits until step 4 to implement a standard, all is lost;
it'll never happen. On the other hand when people [2] implement new
"standards" without documenting them _and_ running that documentation
through peer review, it gets ugly.
[1] That's a joke, eh.
[2] Hi Microsoft, Netscape ...
--
Nathan Norman - Incanus Networking mailto:nnorman@incanus.net
A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.
-- Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
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