Subject: Re: New USEPRO path-identity text

From: John Stanley <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 15:49:11 -0700 (PDT)

"Charles Lindsey" <chl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>But if that is what RFC 2821 is doing, then that is exactly what my text
>is doing for the mailboxes "news", "usenet" and "abuse".

No it is not. You are attempting to create a new requirement that an 
existing standard explicitly says is NOT required. You are trying to do 
this for a mailbox that is NOT news-specific. USENET@ and NEWS@ are ours 
to describe. ABUSE@ is not.

>Therefore the text gives some more detail of that,

It is highly disengenuous to claim that your text is simply "more 
details" when you know your text makes a new requirement that the existing 
standard is explicit in saying is optional.

>And what you have written above implies that you accept that the "MUST" in
>RFC 2821 is justified, even though you have not indicated any
>interoperability issue. 

The MUST in RFC2821, if it exists, regarding "postmaster", applies to MAIL 
configuration, and it seems patently obvious that anyone who runs a MAIL 
system ought to have an address at which problems with that system which 
can easily affect others can be reached. That's called "interoperability 
issue". But this is irrelevant and you are wasting our time, since RFC2821 
is not the issue and cannot be changed by us no matter what.

Your MUST regarding an abuse@ address at every FQDN that appears in a path
is for NEWS, and we already require not just one but TWO addresses for
news administrators to deal with news configuration problems. 
Interoperability issues for NEWS are solved by using the USENET@ and 
NEWS@ addresses (although I cannot see why two are required when one 
would do.) 

The issue is why an address that is NOT news-specific and has no
interoperability issues is MANDATORY, despite an existing standard that 
clearly says it is optional.

You have yet to justify your mandate. Your attempt at clouding the issue 
by claiming that "it's just like POSTMASTER" is silly. Your claim that you 
are just "providing more details" is patently false. Your claim that it is 
a security issue is patently false. Your claim that RFC2142 applies only 
to ISPs is patently absurd. There simply is no reason to require an abuse 
reporting address for every FQDN that might appear in a path.

>I grant you that what I have written is not _exactly_ what RFC 2142 says

And you have yet to justify the difference, despite repeated requests.

>Is is in some aspects stronger and in some
>aspects weaker, and if people want to promote of demote the various
>instances of "should", "SHOULD" and "MUST", then that is a legitimate
>subject for discussion.

We have discussed it. Everyone other than you that I've seen express an 
opinion says drop the MUST regarding abuse and FQDN. It's not even worth a 
SHOULD, because the existing standard tells us it is OPTIONAL. As long as 
the top level domain is covered, then abuse reports can be sent.

>I have only
>proposed that MUST for injecting agents, and that only because those are
>the ones that people really need to be able to contact, 

USENET and NEWS are already required. There is no need for an abuse
address at every FQDN listed in that path because, unlike you, most people
seem to grok the concept of "top level domain", and even those that don't
are quite capable of figuring out where to send abuse reports anyway.

>But if people want that MUST demoted to SHOULD,
>then that can be discussed.

It's already been discussed. You cannot justify it. 

If you cannot justify it, remove it. 

So, the paragraph in question becomes just:

   For an injecting agent prepending to a Path header field (7.2.2), the
   <path-identity> MUST be option 1 or 3 and the FQDN MUST be mailable.

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 16:47:32 GMT

>NEWS@ addresses (although I cannot see why two are required when one 

Sigh!

I have NEVER EVER proposed any "MUST regarding an abuse@ address at every
FQDN that appears in a path".

If you cannot even take the trouble to read what is in front of you, then
there is little point in continuing this discussion. This WG has more
important things to do that arguing over your strawmen.

May I suggest that you read USEPRO-04, and then come back here with such
problems as you may have with what is proposed there.

-- 
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
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