Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>

> 
> On 16/07/2005 03:09, Karl Randolph wrote:
> 
> > Peter:
> >
> > Back on list.
> >
> >
> 
> Karl, I do not appreciate you copying to this list material which I 
> sent to you on list (snipped from below).
> 
Peter: Sorry, I forwarded only that which I though you would find 
inoffensive. Sorry, my mistake.

> 
> > Second, is the archiving software at ibiblio limited to correctly 
> > encoded MIME messages? State it right out, don't beat around the 
> > bush saying that html messages or other such are produced by 
> > buggy programs. Then it is a feature, not a bug, when it mangles 
> > non-MIME encoded messages, and non-MIME text strings within 
> > messages. State it clearly that a MIME complient mail program 
> > must be used and stop these bug accusations if MIME is a 
> > requirement. If MIME is not a requirement, then those are bugs.
> >
> >
> >
> There is no bug in the archiving software. This software correctly 
> transforms the encoding of certain characters into a form which is 
> valid in an HTML page. To do this, it needs to among other things 
> "escape" all ampersands to avoid them being misinterpreted as the 
> start of a character entity. This is standard practice in HTML 
> encoding.
> 
> But yes, the software, like all e-mail software, does assume that 
> e-mail it receives follows the standard for e-mail transmission, 
> either the original MAIL standard or the extensions to it known as 
> MIME. And for encodings other than ASCII the MIME standard must be 
> followed. If you try to communicate with others using software 
> which does not follow the standards for e-mail, then you can hardly 
> be surprised that others do not receive what you intended.
> 
> In principle your mail software might make no attempt to comply 
> with MIME but might support only the old MAIL standard. In that 
> case it would not surprisingly get confused when you try to use it 
> to send non-ASCII characters. But that does not seem to be true of 
> your mail software, because you are able to send partially 
> MIME-compliant messages. And the messages you send to me direct 
> include the line "Mime-Version: 1.0", which is an explicit claim to 
> comply with MIME version 1.0. So, I have to conclude that your 
> software is claiming to comply with MIME but in fact is not doing 
> so. That implies that there are bugs in it - or that the authors 
> are making deliberately misleading claims.
> 
> 
> -- Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/

>From the URL that you supplied me earlier concerning MIME 
standards, it originally could handle only ASCII encoded 
messages. One of the early problems with MIME was that other 
email standards were developed to handle other than ASCII, 
and messages in those other standards were often corrupted 
by MIME forwarders, even when neither the originator nor the 
recipient requested MIME compliance.

(My first extensive experience with email was through an ASCII 
only MIME server.)

What is leaving my computer is html standard. Somewhere, and 
the headers of messages you sent me do not show where, it is 
being translated to MIME: is it when it leaves email.com, as a 
front end program accepting emails at ibiblio, or at an 
intervening node? Neither of us knows. In fact it is rather 
irrelevant. What is important is to realize that MIME is the 
demanded standard, that this faulty translation occurs and how 
do we get around the problem?

The email forwarding program at ibiblio does not cause problems. 
An html messages will arrive at another html reader without 
losing content, however, it will show up on a MIME reader as 
gibberish. Obviously, MIME is far more limited than html.

Html mail is a feature. MIME is a far more limited email 
standard, is a feature. The two are incompatible, that too is a 
feature, not a bug. That there is not a good translator from 
html to MIME is also a feature (unless there is a claim that 
such a translator exists). That ibiblio accepts only MIME 
encoded messages is a feature. 

Be up front about features, that ibiblio accepts only MIME, and 
it would have saved a lot of hassle and time.

Karl W. Randolph.

-- 
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