Thanks for your comment,
>Not always. See RFC 1652. This extension is widely deployed and heavily
>used.
I've read RFC1652 and recognized most of SMTP server today has already
have 8BITMIME body option (ESMTP).
>This is the current state of affairs, but work is already underway to do
>something similar to RFC 1652 for headers. However, waiting for the IDN
>work to reach its conclusion first seems like a good idea.
Evenif the RFC is made, it will need time to spread into implementations.
>I believe this is an accurate assessment of the majority of use today. However,
>there are lots of exceptions in practice. UTF-8 is coming into use in some
>places, for example. And modern mail transports handle it fine without
>encoding.
Talking about PC(Windows PC), the latest versions of Microsoft Outlook
Express and Outlook 2000 support UTF-8. Some of 3rd party mail softwares
also support UTF-8 in the latest beta version, although the connectivity/
interoperability is not fully tested yet.
On the other hand, most of PDAs(HandHeldPC, PalmPC, CellerPhone with
Internet access capabilities) are not ready for Unicode/UTF-8, and there
is low market pressure. Most of Japanese consumers even don't know what
UTF-8 is.
>And isn't likely to gain in popularity in the future. UTF-7 is a bad idea;
>UTF-8 should be used instead.
I don't like UTF-7, neither, It is too complex.
Although I'm not enthsiastic to the Unicode/UTF-8, I believe one solution
is better than three solutions (iso-2022-jp, Shift-JIS and EUC, all of
them are used in current Japanese environment). However, it is the truth
that not the all Japanese-enabled Internet equipments are not ready for
Unicode/UTF-8 today. The transition is going slowly, perhaps will take
years to complete. I don't know very much about other Asian countries,
but I belive the situation is similer to my country.
I think UTF-8 and 8BITMIME should be defined as MANDETORY for IPP mail
notification, and the compatibility methods(i.e iso-2022-jp and base64)
should be defined as OPTIONAL.
Regards,
--------
Yuji Sasaki
Company E-Mail :sasaki at jci.co.jp
Personal E-Mail:crazy17 at ibm.net
Nifty-Serve :PFG02524 at nifty.ne.jp
1066 Saratoga Avenue Suite #100 San Jose CA 95129 USA
Tel:408-551-6470 Fax:408-551-6475