CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Allan Cargille/MCI Minutes of the Mail Extensions Working Group (MAILEXT) The MAILEXT Working Group met once at the Danvers IETF on 4 April. The minutes of the meeting were taken by Laird Popkin and edited by Allan Cargille. Administrative Items The agenda was presented and revised: o Introductions o Revise agenda o Mailing list o Document review The group mailing list was moved from cs.wisc.edu to list.cren.net. To subscribe, send a message to listproc@list.cren.net. The subject line is ignored. In the body, include a line of the format: subscribe mailext Firstname Lastname Document Review Documents were reviewed in order of least controversial to most controversial. o draft-ietf-mailext-smtp-521-03.txt -- Alain Durand. The primary author was unable to be present at the IETF. John Myers asked to be removed from the document as an author. There was discussion on whether to recommend this convention or merely make it Experimental. The document actually describes two mechanisms that could be used, but does not recommend one over the other. There was consensus in the group that establishing MX records for non-SMTP hosts is maintenance-intensive and should be discouraged. None of the working group members present felt strongly that the document should proceed on the standards track. It was recommended that the document should be progressed as an Experimental RFC, with a note that implementation experience is encouraged and people are requested to report experience to the MAILEXT mailing list. o draft-ietf-mailext-checkp-00.txt -- Dave Crocker, Ned Freed. Discussion: this was viewed as important for a noisy world where lines break, but the Internet has relatively reliable links. One or two people said they would implement it. The working group recommended that it be progressed to Experimental. o draft-ietf-mailext-smtp-binary-06.txt -- Greg Vaudreuil. There was a long discussion about this document. There are a number of companies who are either implementing this or plan to do so. However, there were not multiple independent interworking implementations at the time of the IETF. The author, Greg Vaudreuil, needed a stable document to come out of this IETF so that companies would have confidence implementing the standard. Greg preferred to see it progressed as standards track, but would rather progress it as Experimental rather than see it delayed another IETF. There was concern in the working group about progressing it on the standards track in the absence of interworking implementations. There was also concern that the conversion between 7-bit and 8-bit is complex and may not be specified clearly in the MIME standard. There was also discussion about whether the SMTP extension verbs used in he document should be standard verbs or XVERBs. In the absence of further input from the IESG, the chair was hesitant to progress the document with standard verbs. (Note: since the IETF, the MIME revision has been clarified to allow Experimental RFCs to use standard verbs.) The author requested that the document be progressed as Experimental, but that the working group chair supply text emphasizing that the working group views this work as important and would be pleased to progress it on the standards track once interworking implementations are available. o draft-ietf-mailext-smtpas-01.txt -- Klensin, Freed, Moore, Houttuin. The document is intended to be standards track but is not ready yet. The document requires broad community acceptance. It was recommended that a separate mailing list be created for reviewing this document, to obtain greater community participation. This document may be moved to the 821/822 rewrite effort discussed below. Otherwise, hopefully one or two revisions will be produced by Stockholm and it can be progressed there. o draft-ietf-mailext-mime-check-00.txt -- Erik Huizer. The MIME responder tool has had high usage levels, over 1000 requests per day. The author would like the document to be released as an Informational RFC with working group review. He will send out a new version to the list and the chair will send out a last call to the list. There was discussion on whether this document should be expanded to include other aspects of e-mail user agents. There was consensus in the group that a more comprehensive user agent feature checklist would be a helpful contribution, but that this should be a separate document pursued in a different group. (It was also clarified that people have different ideas over what features are important in a user agent, so the document should merely catalog the many features which might be included in a UA.) This document will be added to the group's charter and should be submitted before Stockholm. o draft-ietf-mailext-mail-attributes-00.txt -- Jacob Palme. This document is intended to become an Informational RFC with working group review. The document should be added to the groups charter and forwarded prior to the Stockholm IETF. o draft-ietf-mailext-new-fields-01.txt -- Jacob Palme. Initially, this document will be referred to the new group that works on UA to UA issues and hopefully incorporated into broader work. If that process proves slow, then the non-controversial of these fields can be submitted in its own document. Group consensus that it should be a standards track document. It was asked if someone was going to draft a charter for the new group? o RFC 821/822 Rewrite Discussion -- Klensin/Myers. There was consensus that an 821/822 rewrite is a ``Good Thing.'' Unclear whether this should incorporate changes to 821/822 or merely document what is already valid and/or in general use. A number of volunteers (John Myers, Dave Crocker, Keith Moore, and a few others) volunteered to work on the new charter. AOB The working group should conclude its work by the Stockholm IETF. (Note: the Area Directors would like to see the group conclude its work prior to the IETF.)