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Re: [ietf-smtp] Make username optional in email addresses

Dave Crocker <dhc@dcrocker.net> Fri, 17 February 2023 21:55 UTC

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Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2023 13:55:01 -0800
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To: Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>, Scott Antipa <scottantipa@gmail.com>
Cc: ietf-smtp@ietf.org
References: <CAG6nNWe_7-JN4mzTcsfHBj-cO9qO8twXr+GOg=kiQ8e5XataPA@mail.gmail.com> <87mt5cezkb.fsf@hope.eyrie.org>
From: Dave Crocker <dhc@dcrocker.net>
Organization: Brandenburg InternetWorking
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Subject: Re: [ietf-smtp] Make username optional in email addresses
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On 2/17/2023 1:45 PM, Russ Allbery wrote:
> I think a comparable change would be MIME, which introduced structured
> email and non-ASCII character sets, and that change took decades to be
> reliably usable

MIME is a likely guess for comparison, but it's actually fundamentally 
different.  It did not touch the infrastructure. MIME is a pure 
value-add function that rides on top of the existing email handling and 
content standards.  In terms of pure computer science, it is arguably 
ugly but in terms of demonstrating how to upgrade a global system, it's 
been astonishingly effective engineering.

It didn't even need touch email creation or reading software. Although 
the alternative was awkward, it was viable for early adopters.

And while I don't have measurements, I think it became useful far more 
quickly than decades.  But that was after some decades of alternatives 
that /did/ try to change the infrastructure, and it had demonstrated, 
widespread market pull.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
mast:@dcrocker@mastodon.social

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