Subject: Open issues

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 20:04:02 +0100

Hi, I'm starting to get lost again with too many open issues
where I've no clue if they're recorded in the ticket system,
already fixed in the editor's copy, under discussion, or in
some other state.  

Last states seen:

#1155 USEFOR ABNF imports (should be "text proposed" ?)
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30341>

#1156 IANA considerations (NNTP-Posting-* not yet ready ?)
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30342>

#1157 Control cancel bug (should be "text proposed" ?)
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30345>

ISSUE 3.2.14 <sender> (no ticket yet ?  Under discussion)
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30351>

#1158 host-value (should be "text proposed" ?)
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30391>

ISSUE Newsgroups and Distribution WSP (no ticket yet ?)
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30395>

ISSUE Missing [CFWS] (no ticket yet ?  "Text proposed")
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30427>

ISSUE fields (no ticket yet ?  "Text proposed")
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30451>

#1032 Appendix B (three missing items nominated)
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30495>

Maybe it's possible to get rid of all minor issues (more like
nits) in a fresh draft.

A complete #1047 ABNF proposal exists, apparently it has all
required "features":

<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30512>

                            Bye, Frank

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 21:39:58 +0100

> Last states seen:
[...]

I forgot to nominate the erroneous [FWS] as issue, see also:

<http://article.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30413>

That's a list of 10 erroneous trailing [FWS] CRLF cases with
a pointer to the submitted 2822-erratum about <unstructured>.

Complete patch covering the 10 leading and 10 trailing [FWS]
cases with a placeholder for #1047 <path-list>:

unstructured    =  *WSP utext *( [FWS] utext ) *WSP

message-id      =  "Message-Id:" SP *WSP msg-id *WSP

newsgroup-list  =  *WSP newsgroup-name
                   *( [FWS] "," [FWS] newsgroup-name ) *WSP

path-list       =  <see #1047 discussion>

poster-text     =  *WSP %d112.111.115.116.101.114 *WSP
                   ; "poster" in lower-case

control         =  "Control:" SP *WSP control-command *WSP CRLF

supersedes      =  "Supersedes:" SP *WSP msg-id *WSP CRLF

dist-list       =  *WSP dist-name
                   *( [FWS] "," [FWS] dist-name ) *WSP

xref            =  "Xref:" SP *WSP server-name
                   1*( FWS location ) *WSP CRLF

lines           =  "Lines" ":" SP *WSP 1*DIGIT *WSP CRLF

The problematic [FWS] _within_ <newsgroup-list> and _within_
<dist-list> is a separate ISSUE (got no ticket yet), compare
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30395>

The problematic {FWS] _within_ <control-command> is a part
of #1157 (control cancel bug).
                               Bye, Frank

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:50:07 -0800

Hi, apologies for falling behind.... on the road again.

Expect to get back to USEFOR issue tracking on Wednesday - not today.

            Harald

--On 21. januar 2006 20:04 +0100 Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]> 
wrote:

># 1155 USEFOR ABNF imports (should be "text proposed" ?)
># 1156 IANA considerations (NNTP-Posting-* not yet ready ?)
># 1157 Control cancel bug (should be "text proposed" ?)
># 1158 host-value (should be "text proposed" ?)
># 1032 Appendix B (three missing items nominated)

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 16:22:31 GMT

><http://article.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30413>

Yes, you have been flogging this for months, but not a single person has
supported your position AFAICT.

If this is a problem, then it is a problem in RFC 2822, and RFC 2822bis is
the place to fix it. But, since any such fix will not fix all of the cases
where folding is disallowed, there is little to be gained by making the
change for these few.

><dist-list> is a separate ISSUE (got no ticket yet),

[FWS] within newsgroups list was discussed and wording agreed long ago. I
agree that similar wording is meeded in <dist-list> but there is no
controversy there. Ken should just get on and do it (maybe Harald should
confirm that).

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: [email-masked]      Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9      Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5

---

From: "Forrest J. Cavalier III" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 13:03:26 -0500

> supported your position AFAICT.

I support Frank's position.  Posting "me too" is bad form, and as
far as I remember, no one has offered a reasonable counter to
Frank's position, except that it isn't what RFC2822 says, (as if
that argument carries all the water in other header fields discussions.)

'*WSP' is even one less character than '[FWS]' and I'm all for
shortening documents (although USEFOR isn't offensive.)

> where folding is disallowed, there is little to be gained by making the

We said that USEFOR is more restrictive than RFC 2822.

*WSP is a strict subset of [FWS]

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 22:10:47 +0100

Charles Lindsey wrote:

> Yes, you have been flogging this for months

We needed about a year to determine that it's unnecessary to
do something with leading SP [CFWS] and trailing [CFWS] CRLF,
because the latter is clear in 2822.

After that red herring we checked why 2822 <unstructured> is
utter dubious, here and on the rfc822 list (summer 2005).

With Bruce's help we finally arrived at the conclusion that
the 2822 <unstructured> [FWS] cannot simply be replaced by
*WSP, because that would lose the important <obs-FWS> case.

That's now (2006) submitted as 2822-erratum, RfC-editor and
2822-author can fight it out when they find the time for it.

USEFOR -06 has it clear (1.4 and 2.1) that <obs-FWS> isn't
allowed in conformant articles, and that the ABNF describes
header fields in conformant articles.

> not a single person has supported your position

You supported that 2822 <unstructured> is wrong, and while
Bruce didn't go that far he also said that an "empty" header
field line is clearly NOT what RfC 2822 wants, including all
unstructured header fields.

> If this is a problem, then it is a problem in RFC 2822, and
> RFC 2822bis is the place to fix it

It is a problem, and 2822bis cannot fix errors in the ABNF of
NetNews header fields Newsgropus, Distribution, Followup-To,
Xref, Lines, Supersedes, Control, and Path.

> any such fix will not fix all of the cases where folding is
> disallowed

It addresses obvious problems for the mentioned header fields.
Dito for Message-Id and all <unstructured> header fields like
Summary, Comments, and Subject.

As far as I'm concerned Message-Id is a NetNews header field.
We've seen that folding it at the first [FWS] does not work.

Summary is also something that can't be "fixed" by a 2822bis,
unless they adopt it.  Besides they'd be completely unable to
get this right for NetNews:

- they have no "magic SP" like NetNews
- they have to consider their own legacy <obs-FWS>
- their only leading + trailing [FWS] is in <unstructured>
- their only additional leading [FWS] is in <day-of-week>
- improving the leading [FWS] in <unstructured> could affect
  2047-encoded unstructured text wrt to line length limits.

=> our job to fix this for NetNews, 2822bis cannot solve it.

We got separate tickets or pending issues for three cases of
"embedded" [FWS] in Newsgroups, Distribution, and Control.

This is no nonsense or lillygilding, it's a serious issue:
Russ proposed to send a folded Control directly to /dev/null.

                        Bye, Frank

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 10:53:17 -0800

Using your message to check off.....

> <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30351>
#1159
> <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30395>
#1178 (I hope I identified a reasonable piece from your message)

> <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30427>
#1177
> <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30451>
Suggest to ignore.

> <http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30512>

ABNF copied into ticket. It does not produce "!!".

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2006 10:55:26 -0800

Assigned ticket #1179.

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 16:12:02 +0100

> Using your message to check off.....

Thanks.  I'm not sure if that list was complete.  One missing
minor point might be the <article-locator> ABNF different
from the <locator> in s-o-1036.

[...]

One solution was apparently to get rid of at least the SHOULD,
and another to get rid of sender= completely.

>> ISSUE Newsgroups and Distribution WSP
{...]
> #1178 (I hope I identified a reasonable piece from your

That was about moving a statement aboout this from USEPRO 3.2
to USEFOR 3.1.5 (Newsgroups), and about adding a note to 3.2.7
(Distribution) essentially saying "same here".

 [#1047]
> ABNF copied into ticket. It does not produce "!!".

That was a proposal for the '[FWS] before terminating "!"'
strategy.  Apparently some (most ?) of "us" prefer "!!".

The proposal also allowed "legacy identity with dots", and
that doesn't fly with your idea "IPv4 is always a legacy
diagnostics".

For a proposal reflecting your ideas about dots and "!!" see
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30547>
with an unnecessary ambiguity for ...!demon!...  fixed in
<http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.ietf.usenet.format/30551>

I've added the fixed version below.  A version for the "old"
<toplabel> "allowing" a singleton ALPHA as TLD would be one
line shorter.
                        Bye, Frank

; ------------------------------------------------------------------#

path            =  "Path:" SP *WSP path-list tail-entry *WSP CRLF
path-list       =  1*( path-identity [ path-diagnostic ] "!" [FWS] )

path-diagnostic =  diag-match / diag-posted / diag-seen /
                   diag-mismatch / diag-deprecated

diag-match      =  "!"                           ; an additional "!"
diag-posted     =  "!.POSTED"
diag-seen       =  "!.SEEN."     ( path-identity / diag-literal )
diag-mismatch   =  "!.MISMATCH." ( path-identity / diag-literal )
diag-deprecated =  "!" 1*( path-nodot "." ) path-nodot

diag-literal    =  IPv4address / IPv6address     ; compare STD 66

path-identity   =  ( 1*( label "." ) toplabel ) / path-nodot
path-nodot      =  1*( alphanum / "-" / "_" )

tail-entry      =  *( path-nodot "." ) path-nodot

label           =  alphanum [ *( alphanum / "-" ) alphanum ]
alphanum        =  ALPHA / DIGIT                 ; compare RFC 3696

toplabel        =  ( [ label *( "-" ) ] ALPHA   *( "-" ) label   ) /
                   (   label *( "-" )   ALPHA [ *( "-" ) label ] ) /
                   (   label          1*( "-" )          label   )

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 14:23:28 GMT

>--On 23. januar 2006 21:39 +0100 Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]> =

>> I forgot to nominate the erroneous [FWS] as issue, see also:

I favour "No change needed".