I admit it: I'm not a fan of X- headers.
Why not just register a header in the header registry and be done with
it, rather than encouraging yet-another set of X-headers, all possibly
named differently? Why encourage the use of X- headers in a standards
track document?
For example, consider using Netnews-Gateway-Control in place of
X-Gateway, or some other such name,
2. The news-to-mail gateway adds a Netnews-Gateway-Control header
field to all messages it generates.
and then add this to the IANA Considerations section:
Header field name: Netnews-Gateway-Control
Applicable protocol: mail, netnews
Status: standard
Author/Change controller: IETF
Specification document(s): RFC XXXX (this document)
If you'd rather define a *set* of header names, to allow implementations
to pick their own names, then use this:
2. The news-to-mail gateway adds a Netnews-Gateway-Control header
field (or a header field whose name begins with
Netnews-Gateway-Control-) to all messages it generates.
and then add this to the IANA Considerations section:
Header field name: Netnews-Gateway-Control
Applicable protocol: mail, netnews
Status: standard
Author/Change controller: IETF
Specification document(s): RFC XXXX (this document)
Header field name: Netnews-Gateway-Control-* (all headers whose name
begins with "Netnews-Gateway-Control-")
Applicable protocol: mail, netnews
Status: standard
Author/Change controller: IETF
Specification document(s): RFC XXXX (this document)
My $0.02.
Tony Hansen
tony@xxxxxxx
SM wrote:
>> I can see your point here, but I'm not sure the lack is particularly
>> important. I'd really rather not see us make further changes to USEFOR;
>> generally an X-* header is used for this and is adequate in practice.
>
> Each implementation might use a different header field name. It's might
> become a problem in future.
>
>> Well, this is very explicitly an example based on a specific
>> implementation, which happens to use an X-* header. But I can see where
>> this would be less than ideal. However, as above, I'm hesitant to invent
>> a new header for this purpose and add the necessary machinery for
>> registering it when there is no standardized existing practice and it's
>> not clear what issues are involved in picking a header field,
>> standardizing its format, and so forth.
>
> Implementors will likely pick X-Gateway as you mentioned that header
> name in the example. Once people start using specific headers, it's
> difficult to depreciate them in favor of some standardized format.
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