Protocol Action: SMTP Extensions to Proposed Standard

[IESG Secretary <[e-mail]>]

  The IESG has approved the following Internet Drafts as a Proposed
  Standard.

  o "SMTP Service Extensions" <draft-rose-extensions-07.txt>

  o "SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIMEtransport"
     <draft-ietf-smtpext-8bit-mime-01.txt>

  o "SMTP Service Extension for Message Size Declaration"
     <draft-moore-extension-size-05.txt>

  The following companion document should be published as Informational.

  o "Transition of Internet Mail from Just-Send-8 to 8Bit-SMTP/MIME" 
     <draft-ietf-smtpext-transition-03.txt>

  These documents are the product of the Internet Mail Extensions
  Working Group. The IESG contact persons are Russ Hobby and Erik
  Huizer.
                              
Technical Summary

  This series of documents define a framework for extending the SMTP
  service and an initial set of optional services including 8bit
  transport for MIME messages and message size declaration.

  The extensions mechanism defines a means whereby a server SMTP can
  inform a client SMTP as to the service extensions it supports.  With
  the knowledge of the servers capabilities a client can without
  negotiation use enhanced services.

  The 8bit extensions document defines an extension to
  the SMTP service whereby content body consists of a MIME message
  containing arbitrary octet-aligned material may be exchanged. Note
  that this extension does NOT eliminate the possibility of an SMTP
  server limiting line length; servers are free to implement this
  extension but nevertheless set a line length limit no lower than 1000
  octets.

  The message size document defines a SMTP service whereby a client may
  declare the size of a particular message to a server and a server may
  declare the maximum message size it is willing to accept to a
  client.  This extension is intended to avoid sending a large message
  which will later be rejected to excessive size.

Working Group Summary

  These documents are based on an earlier submission to the IESG "SMTP
  Extensions for Transport of Enhanced Messages".  This document
  received significant comment during the last call.  The protocol and
  documents were split into separate services and incremental technical
  changes were made to some aspects of the protocol.

Protocol Quality

  The initial proposal submitted to the IESG was implemented and these
  documents reflect incremental changes to that initial proposal.  The
  documents have received an extra-ordinary level of review and are
  understood to be complete.

Greg Vaudreuil
IESG Secretary