Subject: RE: [lemonade] Why are we keeping X-MMS headers?

From: "Vaudreuil, Greg M (Greg)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 12:11:09 -0500

The fact that functionality does not wait for standards is hugely inconvenient. The alternative is largely unacceptable. Staying with the formal processes was the approach taken by VPIM.  "look ma, no X-headers!"  It was an eight to ten year effort due to the number of individual enhancements and dependencies.... that for following that path, we really missed the market window.    Most folks are less purist, and launch products when the market demandeds.  If their innovations meet a need, they get adopted.  OMA took that typical path. 

I don't see market pressure to adopt a sucessful X-header as damage... inconvenient, expensive, less than desired, maybe, but not infrastructure damage. Can we focus on containing the true negatives you see, by say, formalizing a registry for X-headers to at least avoid clashes? 

Greg V.

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Crispin [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 12:15 PM
To: Vaudreuil, Greg M (Greg)
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: [lemonade] Why are we keeping X-MMS headers?

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005, Vaudreuil, Greg M (Greg) wrote:
> X-MMS headers are no 
> more dangerous to the infrastructure than X-mailer and X-MS-priority.

You have just made my point.

We are under considerable pressure to support (not just generate, but 
process and make decisions based upon) X-Mailer and the various forms of 
X-Priority.  Because these are "standard", that's why; and we are being 
[pick your favorite slur] for not following this "standard".

The Lemonade WG, for the first time, proposes to define some X- headers as 
real IETF standards.  Rather than shore up the dyke, you want to bulldoze 
huge holes in it.

This is not progress.

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 10:29:27 -0700 (PDT)

On Fri, 24 Jun 2005, Vaudreuil, Greg M (Greg) wrote:
> I don't see market pressure to adopt a sucessful X-header as damage... 
> inconvenient, expensive, less than desired, maybe, but not 
> infrastructure damage.

If that is the case, then why do we bother having an IETF?  Why not just 
let the market decide everything without the extreme expense and 
bureaucracy of the IETF process?

This sounds crazy, but I can assure you that there are people who think 
that way.

> Can we focus on containing the true negatives you 
> see, by say, formalizing a registry for X-headers to at least avoid 
> clashes?

X- headers are supposed to be jungle space; to be used for experimental 
and private purposes.  I consider any erosion of this jungle to be a true 
negative.  The instant that an IETF standard defines X-MMS within the 
Internet context, Mark's Magic System has lost swamp that it thought that 
it owned.

Yes, this is the slippery slope argument.  But the fact that an argument 
is trite and rather dog-eared doesn't make it invalid.

-- Mark --