Re: [apps-discuss] Fwd: I-D Action:draft-saintandre-xdash-considered-harmful-01.txt

[Claudio Allocchio <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, 20 Oct 2010, Dave CROCKER wrote:

> Disclaimer:
>
>     I was editor for the document that introduced it, 28 years ago, but am 
> pretty sure the idea came from a participant on the mailing list that was 
> discussing RFC 822 development, rather than coming from my own brain.
>
>     In any event, during the IETF DRUMS working group, which produced 
> RFC2822, I lobbied for eliminating the construct.  I think it was an 
> excellent idea, but I think it's downside is far more significant than its 
> upside.  And indeed, the upside has largely been eliminated.  /d
>
>
> On 10/20/2010 2:44 AM, SM wrote:
>> Quoting Section 3.8.1 of RFC 2821 (3.7.1 in RFC 5321):
>> 
>> "Other mail systems gatewayed to the Internet often use a subset of
>> the RFC 822 header section ...  A possible
>> solution would be to create new header fields to carry the envelope
>> information (e.g., "X-SMTP-MAIL:" and "X-SMTP-RCPT:");"

for this one you I can blame guilty, but I share the burden with Steve 
Kille. It was a workaround to allow SMTP to be the intermediate carrier 
between 2 non-standard, or "different" standard mail systems:

  A-type-mail-system-->gw-->SMTP-->gw-->A-type-mail-system

> Essentially, the need for some additonal header fields, for messages being 
> gatewaying in from another system, is merely one more source of "private" 
> content labeling.  It does not really ahve any special characteristics.

true.

> There are two different issues.  One is that people like to invent header 
> fields frequently and conveniently.  I'd say that's a pretty safe assessment.
>
> The second is that they somehow "prefer" using X-, rather than inventing a 
> name that does not use X-.
>
> My anecdotal sense of things is that they actually believe they are 
> /required/ to use X-, for any non-standardized header field.  Of course, this 
> is not the rule, but they seem to think it is.

I agree. people tend to be a bit lazy... "let's use an X-... and tere will 
be less discussion, no need to follow standards approval procedures.."

Some fields which are of general use MUST be considered for standard, thus 
"no X-"

>> Now, does Xdash stand for Experimental or Extension?
>
> I don't remember that it had any specific meaning.

nor do I.

all the best!

PS: this was the X- section of Dave's message as I received from the ML:

X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 2.3
X-DKIM: Sendmail DKIM Filter v2.6.0 lx1.dir.garr.it o9KNneGD015895
X-Original-To: [e-mail]
X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.96.1 at lx1.dir.garr.it
X-Spam-Score: -6.539
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.4 required=6.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,SPF_FAIL
     shortcircuit=no autolearn=no version=3.3.1
X-Greylist: Sender is SPF-compliant,
     not delayed by milter-greylist-3.0 (lx1.dir.garr.it [193.206.158.2]);
     Thu, 21 Oct 2010 01:49:42 +0200 (CEST)
X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.0
     (sbh17.songbird.com [72.52.113.17]);
     Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:49:32 -0700 (PDT)
X-BeenThere: [e-mail]
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9

as you can see... none of them has any gateway meaning (ok we do not use 
gateways often anymore), and most of it is for informational purpouses to 
the human recipient (... and 98% of recipents will never see them).

but... at least the "spam information" ones could have easily been 
standardised, but are we still in time now?

:-)



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