Message-Id: <199803182226.RAA02815@spot.cs.utk.edu>
From: Keith Moore <moore@cs.utk.edu>
To: Robert Elz <kre@munnari.OZ.AU>
cc: Paul Hoffman / IMC <paulh@imc.org>, DRUMS WG <drums@cs.utk.edu>,
        moore@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: X- fields 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 18 Mar 1998 08:41:39 +1100."
             <10929.890170899@munnari.OZ.AU> 
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Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 17:26:17 -0500
Sender: moore@cs.utk.edu

> | I disagree. The developer who is creating the SMTP agent that
> | will emit X-fields knows at the time he/she is creating it whether
> | or not the field is for private use or whether it is an experiment.
> 
> You mean they can fortell the future?   How?  It's a trick I'd like to
> learn, and if becoming an SMTP agent developer is all it takes, think I
> think I'll start today...
> 
> What was intended to be a purely local private thing, of no consequence
> to anyone else at all, can easily turn into a general standard in almost no
> time - even directly against the desires of the original developer.

I agree that it can easily turn in to a de facto standard.

I emphatically disagree that it such a field is likely to be
appropriate for the Internet standards track.

I believe it's useful to distinguish these two, and X- is a good way
to do it.

Keith