[Mailman-Developers] CTE "base64" due to UTF-8?

[Nigel Metheringham]

There is one serious problem with sending out 8 bit mail.  If the
receiving MTA does not advertise 8 bit MIME you have to transcode in the
MTA.  A few MTAs have decided that buggering about with message bodies
like this is not in their purview and therefore do not advertise 8 bit
MIME by default since then any mail they relay might then have to be
transcoded to 7 bit.  A case in point here is exim which does not do
MIME transcoding (or body hacking in general).

If you do have an 8 bit message, and are trying to send to a non 8 bit
recipient MTA, and will not transcode, you then have a problem.  You can
then either just send it (sod you, take this anyway) or bounce it.

For this reason a case could be made for all mail initiators, including
MLMs, to encode for 7 bit transport.

Its a shame SMTP wasn't originally defined as an 8 bit channel.

	Nigel.
-- 
[ Nigel Metheringham           Nigel.Metheringham at InTechnology.co.uk ]
[ - Comments in this message are my own and not ITO opinion/policy - ]