Somewhat whimsically but wholly serious: Would simply changing the
acronym to AUID (for Agent or User IDentifier) avoid mistaken
connotations associated with User Agents (UAs)?
Tony
Jim Fenton wrote:
> Barry Leiba wrote:
>> Actually responding to the thread this time, as a participant...
>>
>>
>>>>> It's not confusing if the meaning is related. The term "user or
>>>>> agent" is the actual semantics of this value. I read that as
>>>>> equivalent to "user agent".
>>>>>
>>>> It's not. A user agent is an application that acts on behalf of the
>>>> user but is not the user.
>>>>
>>> UAID is an identifier. In computing contexts such as DKIM, all identifiers
>>> refer to machine-based entities, possibly ones that are representing humans.
>>>
>> The only concern I have here is that because "user agent" has a
>> specific connotation, there could be confusion about what happens to
>> it when a user uses more than one UA. Suppose I use Gmail's web
>> client, Mulberry, Apple Mail, and Thunderbird, all at different times,
>> and all sending mail as <barryle...@computer.org> through Gmail's
>> email infrastructure. (In fact, that *is* the case.) Should the UAID
>> that Gmail sticks in the signature always be the same, because it's
>> just me, using these client programs interchangably? Should it be
>> different for all of them, because they're all different UAs? Should
>> the webmail version use one UAID, and the others use another, because
>> there are only two submission mechanisms involved (web vs SMTP to port
>> 587)?
>>
>> I can see that someone implementing or configuring a system wouldn't
>> be sure how to set this up, and at least part of the confusion would
>> be due to interpretation of "user agent".
>>
>
> I share this concern, because I use at least three MUAs (at Cisco, that
> is...more at home). We don't want to give the impression that the
> choice of MUA is necessarily reflected in the i= value.
>> I also agree that we should spend too long on this point... again,
>> speaking as a participant.
>>
>
> Yes, by all means let's spend too long on this! :-)
>
> -Jim
>
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