Re: Corrupted Subject and From header in Amazon.co.uk mail

Alan J. Flavell writes:

[... Discussion about encoded words in a Subject header of a
Usenet article that may be too long, but are decoded by Pine...]

(I think you're referring to section 6.1. Section 2 (in rfc1522 as in
2047) is setting requirements on the sender. What a mail client
should do if it receives defective formats is actually codified in
6.1.)

That is true.

Is there any difference between mail and news in this regard? Usenet
usage differs in a number of respects, and has never really been
formally codified since MIME formats were introduced. They've been
sort-of adopted into news from mail, but there are still
long-established differences of custom. PINE sometimes sits a bit
awkwardly across this divide...

This was not clear to me. Thank you for the clarification. I
used to think that mail and Usenet services work in a very
similar way---at least regarding the headers they have in common.
And Pine makes it very easy through the structure of its user
interface and its user guidance to forget, that there is actually
a difference.

However, if the current USEFOR draft ever makes it into an RFC, then
this will be clearly prohibited, even in news. Usual caveats apply in
reference to internet drafts, but:

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-usefor-usefor-08.txt

o Compliant software MUST NOT generate (but MAY accept) header
fields of more than 998 octets. This is the only limit on the
length of a header field prescribed by this standard. However,
specific rules to the contrary may apply in particular cases (for
example, according to [RFC2047] lines of a header field containing
encoded-words are limited to 76 octets).

It is interesting that RFC1036 creates no technical restriction
on the Subject header. I guess, at that time (RFC1036 will
celebrate its 20th anniversary next year) internationalization
was not considered to be a problem. How likely is it, that the
USEFOR draft will evolve to an RFC?

Franz.
.

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