Subject: 8-bit characters in the header.

From: Kari Sutela <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 10:42:26 +0200

I know this can be controversial, but I'd like the option of using 8-bit
characters (we use ISO 8859-1, here) in the header part of the message. 
Our users are especially concerned because they can't use 8-bit characters
in the Subject field (ä and ö are very common letters in Finnish). 

Could this option be included in a future version of Pine?  Perhaps as a
compile time option (-DALLOW_8BIT_IN_HEADER_ENTRY)?  Perhaps the header
fields where 8-bit chars are found could be quoted-printable-encoded? 
Please.  I know this would break some rules but our users would be very
delighted. 

/KS

---

From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 08:40:00 -0800 (PST)

Actually it's not that controversial, RFC1522 defines a way to represent
non-ASCII characters in headers.  Pine will support this eventually, but
probably not in the next release.

|\ |  |\/|  David L. Miller    [email-masked]  (206) 685-6240
|/ |_ |  |  Software Engineer, Pine Development Team   (206) 685-4045 (FAX)
University of Washington, Networks & Distributed Computing
4545 15th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98105, USA

---

From: Klaus Zeuge <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 94 12:32:41 +0100

>Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 08:40:00 -0800 (PST)
>From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>

>probably not in the next release.

Too bad. It would make Pine really shine. It's bit hard to explain to
someone named Björn åsberg why he can use his name in the message
body, but not in the TO, FROM etc fields.

---

From: Robert Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 07:07:02 -0500

>>>>> "Klaus" == Klaus Zeuge <[email-masked]> writes:

>> Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 08:40:00 -0800 (PST) From: David L Miller
>> <[email-masked]>

>> Actually it's not that controversial, RFC1522 defines a way to
>> represent non-ASCII characters in headers.  Pine will support this
>> eventually, but probably not in the next release.

> Too bad. It would make Pine really shine. It's bit hard to explain
> to someone named Bj=F6rn =E5sberg why he can use his name in the
> message body, but not in the TO, FROM etc fields.

Nah, it's not so hard to explain. RFC822 was written in 1982. The
Atlantic Ocean wasn't discovered until 1991, and the Pacific Ocean a
year later. Latin America still hasn't been discovered, I think.

Hah,hah, only serious.

Bob Morris

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 12:13:17 -0800 (PST)

> body, but not in the TO, FROM etc fields.

Klaus -

Just to sensitize people to the problem, on my screen that name appeared 
as: "Bj", a filled-in square, "n ", a Chinese character meaning a kind of 
shell, and "berg".  My screen is set up with the Japanese character set.

Fortunately, Pine was able to recognize that it may not display the text 
properly, and warned me of that fact (hey, it's better than refusing to 
display it at all, which earlier versions did!).  However, it's important 
to realize that all the world isn't ISO-8859.

Pine *will* support non-ASCII characters in headers, but you should 
always have a reasonable 7-bit form of your name for the benefit of those 
who can't display European characters.

---

From: Michael Wolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 01:52:10 +0100 (MET)

On Fri, 4 Feb 1994, Mark Crispin wrote:

> Klaus - 
> 
> ........................................ .However, it's important
>............................................... , but you should 

I agree. Klaus may wish to use non ASCII characters only locally. But I
also think that we all should try to keep internet messages in *English*. 
In addition, even many (not all) computer applications should remain in
English and restrict themselves to ASCII. 

Michael

---

From: Klaus Zeuge <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 94 02:05:55 +0100

>Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 01:52:10 +0100 (MET)
>From: Michael Wolf <[email-masked]>
>
>

Why? Arent't you supposed to *use* email among actual (physical) *PEOPLE* ?

---

From: Klaus Zeuge <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 94 02:09:28 +0100

>Date: Fri, 4 Feb 1994 12:13:17 -0800 (PST)
>From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>

>shell, and "berg".  My screen is set up with the Japanese character set.

Hm, my message was encoded using ISO 8859-1. My message SAID so. How
come you tried to read it in JAPANESE?

I think (while not being SURE) there is a bug somewhere here.

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 Feb 1994 18:00:46 -0800 (PST)

> come you tried to read it in JAPANESE?

Yes, your message was encoded using 8859-1, and yes, I was warned that it was
not likely to be displayed correctly.  But my terminal was not capable of
displaying 8859-1.  It is only capable of displaying Japanese.

> I think (while not being SURE) there is a bug somewhere here.

Pine had the choice of displaying the 8859-1 in the Japanese character set
(and hoping that there would be enough ASCII that I could make some sense of
it), or it could refuse to display it at all.  I claim that Pine did the right
thing by giving me a warning, and then trying to show me something.

The point is, not everyone can assume that every terminal in the world has
8859.  It is Euro-centric to assume otherwise.

Don't forget, there are more people who use East Asian characters than there
are Europeans; if it came down to it, they out-number you.  This is the
underlying fault of the ``8-bit clean is enough'' idea.

We all need to be very careful to make sure we have a match in character sets
between sender and receiver and not make assumptions.  If there is any
question about the capabilities of the receiver's terminal, it is best to
limit yourself to ASCII.

---

From: Klaus Zeuge <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 94 12:44:27 +0100

>Date: Sun, 6 Feb 1994 18:00:46 -0800 (PST)
>From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>

>displaying 8859-1.  It is only capable of displaying Japanese.

OK, this is were I misunderstood you. I had gotten the impression you
weren't being warned.

>thing by giving me a warning, and then trying to show me something.

I agree.

Still, I would like this mechanism used in the header also (well,
actually I'm content with the real name part in the FROM, TO, CC etc
fields).

	/Klaus

---

From: Barry Landy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 11:28:54 GMT

> underlying fault of the ``8-bit clean is enough'' idea.

While that is true, it is also true that there are more Europeans than 
Americans, and since 8859 will also cope very well with N America, 
perhaps it is a better default?

> question about the capabilities of the receiver's terminal, it is best to

Well and all but it is hard to know, especially if one is a naive sender 
of mail typing what to you are normal characters.

On the general issue, the problem is not solved until ISOCODE/ISO 90646 
comes into effect, but we will then all have to embrace the implications.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barry Landy                        Computer Laboratory:+44 223 334600
Head of Systems and Development    Direct line:        +44 223 334713
University of Cambridge Computing Service
New Museums Site                   Email:[email-masked]
Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG

---

From: Michael Wolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 13:41:09 +0100 (MET)

On Mon, 7 Feb 1994, Klaus Zeuge wrote:

> >.................

Sure. But I would make a difference between local and international
communications. 

It is important for us to understand each other. A good "tool" for this
purpose is English. I am happy to have the possibility to communicate all
over the world, even if I have some difficulties, with the language or
with the character set.

Michael

---

From: Kari Sutela <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 19:19:43 +0200

> 8859.  It is Euro-centric to assume otherwise.

Ok, ok.  Let's just change the suggestion to "please, allow pine to 
use non-ASCII characters in the header by implementing the RFC which 
describes how to do this without breaking any rules" :-)  It has been 
promised that pine will eventually do this and I'm satisfied.

> question about the capabilities of the receiver's terminal, it is best to

But I have a very hard job in explaining this to my 3000 users who HAVE a
display which supports 8859-1 that they can't user ä and ö in subjects, 
when most of them just exchange email locally.  Don't take me wrong, I 
really appreciate the pine folks and I think that pine is great!  This is 
just one relatively minor inconvenience.

/KS

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 10:25:42 -0800 (PST)

> perhaps it is a better default?

As a data point, inside the US and Canada there are still a great many
terminals which do not support 8859.  In fact, most *terminals* do not support
8859; it's the small set of lucky people who have X terminals who have 8859
capability by default, plus a few who have the right terminal emulator on
their Mac or PC.

It is only until very recently that the US was the ``majority'' of the
Internet (now, it's merely the ``largest country represented'' on the
Internet).  Furthermore, you have to consider the looming importance of Asia
in the Internet scene.  Asia is already more important than Europe in
international economy, and there's no reason to believe the steamroller is
going to stop at that.

All this suggests that it is not safe to assume 8859 as a given except within
Europe.  7bit ASCII is the only thing that you can reasonably assume is
universal.

---

From: Barry Landy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 21:29:52 +0000 (GMT)

> capability by default, plus a few who have the right terminal emulator on
Well, I very naively just set ISO-8859-1 in my PINERC and got the magic 
characters from that Finnish name loud and clear; I then set codepage 850 
and keyboard uk, and my whole world worked normally. What's the point? I 
have a bog standard PC with no requested special language support.
I have a French Canadian friend who would take strong issue with you on 
the underlying point, which he calls linguistic and cultural fasciscm 
(yea, he is really hot on this point!) basically, it is bad enough that 
most computer applications assume that people *speak*  English, but for 
heavens sake let them *write* other languages, and especially their names!

> Internet).  Furthermore, you have to consider the looming importance of Asia

I assumed we were talking about the total computing economy - just 
because Europe has been slow in taking up internet, doesnt mean it can be 
ignored, especially as the solutions are already there, and just need to 
be used.

> international economy, and there's no reason to believe the steamroller is

As I said in  my earlier message, the linguistic problem is wider than 
Europe and not just confined to Asia (Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Greek, are 
European in scope these days); the problem solution to that is "in the 
wings" and no one will be able to ignore it.

> Europe.  7bit ASCII is the only thing that you can reasonably assume is

All very well, but you will find that you cannot then write some people's 
names in messages.

Sorry to go on a bit (it always helps oneself perhaps more than the 
readers) but it is an issue on which Europeans (and other people world 
wide who do not have the English alphabet as their first written 
language) feel very strongly, and on one which US based computing has 
historically been very blind to.

=======================================================================
Barry Landy, Head of Systems and Development,
University of Cambridge Computing Service
[email-masked]      0223-334713   +44-223-334713

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 14:35:00 -0800 (PST)

Barry -

     It is important to understand that when one waves the banner of
``linguistic and cultural fascism'' one should be sure that one's own house is
in order.  8859 is not universal.  It is a regional character set.  It may be
recognized outside that region.  But -- and this is important -- there are
other regional character sets, and they use an overlapping space with 8859.

     I doubt very much that EDCfB@O: displays as anything sensible on your
terminal, yet that is a standard representation of a person's name in that
person's language.  It's just not 8859.

     This is not a simple problem to solve.  If it were simple, we would have
solved it by now!

      Americans are not immune from the problem either; they just are closer
to the subset and don't have to worry about losing any letters.  Backslash is
yen-sign in Japan.  Sharp-sign is the British currency symbol in the UK.
Dollar sign, at-sign, and other familiar characters (to us) are also different
in various national variants of ASCII.

     In other words, the lingua franca of Internet email is a *subset* of 7bit
ASCII.  To be safe, you have to stay within that subset unless you are
communicating within your region.  Even after Pine supports RFC-1522 header
encoding, it'll still be advisable to have an acceptable 7bit representation
of your name along with the 8859 version.

-- Mark --

---

From: Klaus Zeuge <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 94 14:19:32 +0100

>Date: Mon, 7 Feb 94 02:05:55 +0100
>From: Klaus Zeuge <[email-masked]>
>Sender: [email-masked]
>X-Phone: (int) +46-18-271064
>X-Fax:   (int) +46-18-271031
>
>

Ah, I see here a misunderstanding. To me an internet message might be
to the guy in the next room, or to the gal accross te Atlantic ocean.
The guy might understand just english, while the gal prefers swedish.
Whatever. Both are internet messages. 

I do agree in english being the lingua franca in todays computer
related world, and that it's wise giving a version of ones written
name using just A to Z -- but I still think it's plus non good NOT
being able to write once native name TOO, especially as the technical
means exist.

Yes, I'd still like to see Pine starting to cope with this.

>Why? Arent't you supposed to *use* email among actual (physical) *PEOPLE* ?

Here I clearly over reacted, sorry for my bad handling of english.

---

From: Michael Wolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 1994 01:44:39 +0100 (MET)

> Whatever. Both are internet messages.

Perhaps I should have said "international messages", or "messages to an 
international audience".

> Yes, I'd still like to see Pine starting to cope with this.

Wishing to display your name in your language via e-mail to people that
understand your language is legitimate. But I would use non-ASCII only for
well defined targets and with care. Certainly an international mailing
list or an international news group would not be an adequate audience.
Receiving a name in a Japanese font, for example, would make no sense for
me, even if my computer would be able to display it correctly. 

:-)
Michael