SUBMIT and error replies (was: Re: [EAI] #1483 draft-ietf-eai-smtpext-06.txt 2.7.4. UTF-8 Reply)

[John C Klensin <klensin at jck.com>]

--On Monday, 18 June, 2007 09:49 -0700 Chris Newman
<Chris.Newman at Sun.COM> wrote:

> For SMTP, allowing UTF-8 in error responses opens a can of
> worms.
> 
> SMTP error response text needs to be comprehensible by:
> * An arbitrary remote system administrator
> * The local system administrator
> * The end-user
> Probably in that priority order (although that's debatable and
> may be different for SUBMIT).  

And, of course, SUBMIT could be tuned differently if needed.
Since SUBMIT-i18n is not on the WG's agenda and I think we are
obligated to see how this approach works out, I don't want to
start a discussion now but it occurs to me that, if
general-purpose downgrading turns out to be too constrained to
be useful, another option --whether complementary or alternate--
would be to say that most of the responsibility for downgrading,
if needed, lies next to the endpoints and that SUBMIT might be
extended to permit passing some rather specific instructions
between client and submission server.

> That means SMTP response text
> may have to be in more than one language and guidance needs to
> be provided for language selection.

I suppose partially because I'm not enamored of SMTP language
extensions, I would not like to see part of that idea considered
in isolation -- either we look at the whole package (if
necessary, assigning it to this WG, although I'd hope not), or
we don't start tip-toeing backwards down that path.
 
> I would not consider a document allowing UTF-8 in response
> text complete unless dodges this issue (e.g., by only allowing
> UTF-8 in addresses) or confronts this issue.

>From the above, I guess I vote "dodge".

     john



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