Re: Registration of new character set

[ned.freed@mrochek.com]

> I have a general question about this:

> It appears that this encoding is only used in IMAP headers.

More accurately, it is used in IMAP mailbox names. It doesn't appear in email
headers.

> It is not (intended to be) used anywhere else, right?

Yes, but its use in IMAP mailbox names means it does inevitably appear in
various other contexts. Filenames associated with mailboxes are one example;
there are others.

> Then why does this need to be registered as a charset?

Speaking from personal experience, having a name to refer to this charset would
be quite useful. I needed a name in code I've written and I would prefer to
use a standard one rather than making one up that's bound to be different
than what other people come up with.

> It is confined to one single protocol, well defined in that context, and
> otherwise not exchanged, so it does not need to be declared anywhere.

If this were true, perhaps, but the world isn't this neat in practice.

> There are many ad-hoc "encodings" that are protocol-specific, not used
> outside their protocols, and therefore do not need to be registered as
> charsets - witness the current discussion about ways to squeeze Unicode
> into domain names. Those "ACEs" do not need to be registered.

Actually, the final ACE that is chosen for use probably does need to be
registered as a charset, for the same reasons. And I have no problem with
registering other protocol-specific encodings as charset names.

Remember, registration is simply a means of identification, it doesn't imply
endorsement for general use. We really need to get past the notion that
we condone something by registering it.

> If it _is_ registered, I would go for "IMAP-mailbox-name".

Personally I could not care less what the name is. This is as good as any
other.

> A full registration proposal should note "limited" use.

Of course.

				Ned