[Mailman-Developers] case-sensitive e-mail addresses

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 08:26:59AM -0700, Chuq Von Rospach wrote:
> On 5/2/01 8:05 AM, "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
> > I'm afraid I must disagree: that section of 2821 implies that
> > 
> > John.Doe@example.com
> > and
> > john.doe@example.com
> > 
> > *may be separate mailboxes*.  Admittedly, it's a corner case, and very
> > unlikely ever to bite us, but doing it that was *does* violate the
> > standard.
> 
> Sorry, I disagree. "may be" means the standard allows you to consider this
> as optional. That's good, because 821 made case sensistivity mandatory (and
> the switch shows the clear intent of the standards folks, which is moving to
> full case insensitivity, but they must have felt completely removing it was
> too big a step -- but they're telling anyone who might still have a case
> sensitive mailer it's time to fix it)

Hmmm...  Ok.  If *you* think that, Chuq, I'll re-evaulate my opinion.  I
hadn't compared it with 821.  I'm wondering why, though, they didn't
make that explicit in the rewrite.

> In practice, Barry's approach is the best one. The only thing that happens
> if you practice case sensitivity on the user part is that users end up with
> multiple subscriptions, multiple copies and no clue how to fix it or what's
> wrong (and it's your fault, your mailer is screwed up).

Got it.

> The rewrite of the standard makes it clear this kind of situation (John.Doe
> and john.doe being different people) is now optional -- and I don't know
> that any MLM would work cleanly if it happens (and any admin that allows it
> should be shot...)

I believe I *did* evince *that* opinion, at least... :-)

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra@baylink.com
Member of the Technical Staff     Baylink
The Suncoast Freenet         The Things I Think
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