Re: ;binary a/b design teams' summary / recommendation review

[Mark Wahl <Mark.Wahl@sun.com>]

"Kurt D. Zeilenga" wrote:
> 
> The WG is to consider the teams' proposal to remove ;binary
> feature (and all mention of transfer options).  A two-week
> comment period is hereby initiated on this proposal
> ending 24 May 2002.  Based upon your comments, the WG chairs
> will gauge WG consensus and take appropriate actions.

Removal of this element and its capability would hinder further 
interoperability and should not be done.

The story that I remember being told about the early days of the IETF was 
that implementors of TCP/IP stacks came together for a bake-off, found a 
difference of understanding about how the checksumming algorithm was to be 
implemented, and then a choice of interpretation was made.  That choice 
was put into the revised spec and the implementors were then able to 
have their implementations interoperate.  

There have been LDAP interoperability tests for years now, which have found
issues and proposed changes to the spec based on what has been found to 
work in running code.  

Mark Wahl
Sun Microsystems Inc.