Re: Last Call: draft-ietf-usefor-usepro (Netnews Architecture and Protocols) to Proposed Standard

Tony Hansen <tony@att.com> Fri, 26 September 2008 13:45 UTC

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Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:42:47 -0400
From: Tony Hansen <tony@att.com>
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Subject: Re: Last Call: draft-ietf-usefor-usepro (Netnews Architecture and Protocols) to Proposed Standard
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I admit it: I'm not a fan of X- headers.

Why not just register a header in the header registry and be done with
it, rather than encouraging yet-another set of X-headers, all possibly
named differently? Why encourage the use of X- headers in a standards
track document?

For example, consider using Netnews-Gateway-Control in place of
X-Gateway, or some other such name,

   2.  The news-to-mail gateway adds a Netnews-Gateway-Control header
       field to all messages it generates.

and then add this to the IANA Considerations section:

   Header field name: Netnews-Gateway-Control
   Applicable protocol: mail, netnews
   Status: standard
   Author/Change controller: IETF
   Specification document(s): RFC XXXX (this document)

If you'd rather define a *set* of header names, to allow implementations
to pick their own names, then use this:

   2.  The news-to-mail gateway adds a Netnews-Gateway-Control header
       field (or a header field whose name begins with
       Netnews-Gateway-Control-) to all messages it generates.

and then add this to the IANA Considerations section:

   Header field name: Netnews-Gateway-Control
   Applicable protocol: mail, netnews
   Status: standard
   Author/Change controller: IETF
   Specification document(s): RFC XXXX (this document)

   Header field name: Netnews-Gateway-Control-* (all headers whose name
	begins with "Netnews-Gateway-Control-")
   Applicable protocol: mail, netnews
   Status: standard
   Author/Change controller: IETF
   Specification document(s): RFC XXXX (this document)

My $0.02.

	Tony Hansen
	tony@att.com

SM wrote:
>> I can see your point here, but I'm not sure the lack is particularly
>> important.  I'd really rather not see us make further changes to USEFOR;
>> generally an X-* header is used for this and is adequate in practice.
> 
> Each implementation might use a different header field name.  It's might
> become a problem in future.
> 
>> Well, this is very explicitly an example based on a specific
>> implementation, which happens to use an X-* header.  But I can see where
>> this would be less than ideal.  However, as above, I'm hesitant to invent
>> a new header for this purpose and add the necessary machinery for
>> registering it when there is no standardized existing practice and it's
>> not clear what issues are involved in picking a header field,
>> standardizing its format, and so forth.
> 
> Implementors will likely pick X-Gateway as you mentioned that header
> name in the example.  Once people start using specific headers, it's
> difficult to depreciate them in favor of some standardized format.