Since there is plenty of good and free browser software available which does support UTF-8, perhaps servers should start assuming that browsers can support it, and that will gently encourage software vendors and users to upgrade. Well, actually it won't affect most US users as they mostly only use ASCII. For us in the UK and Ireland, we will just get mojibake pounds and euros.Is server software actually obliged to perform such conversions on request?
No, there is no obligation.
Surely, rather, browsers should be expected to support a
certain minimum set of encodings,
Ah but how minimum is acceptable?
Of course, and I've said this already in this thread, we can now just make sure that every server and ever client supports UTF-8 and UTF-16. However it will be some time before servers can assume all browsers can accept these, and before all browsers can assume that all servers can send them. ...
Anyway, isn't this the way W3C standards are going? I thought they were moving to XML compatibility which implies UTF-8 support. Browsers which can't support the latest W3C standards will surely become obsolete very quickly.
... The rule of http headers over-riding embedded self-desciption is going to be necessary until this has come to pass.This follows only if you accept the principle that the carrier has the duty to ensure that the recipient can understand what they receive. I don't accept that the carrier has the duty or even the right to do that. In fact I would suggest that it is an infringement of my civil liberties to do so just as much as it would be for the snail mail service to censor or even reformat my mail.
Even after then it's going to be necessary as there is only one http header which states encoding, but there is an unlimited number of mechanisms for self-description in an unlimited number of potential document types.
Perhaps they have the right to check for security holes, yes, but that is a separate issue. A carrier has the right to check for security issues which might compromise their service, yes, and perhaps the right to check for certain kinds of illegal activity which might include deliberately spreading viruses - but only if such things are clearly set out in the carrier's conditions of service or by law. But the carrier does not have the right to mess around with the content because it thinks that there might be some possibility of compromising the security of ill-configured software at the recipient. The recipient is responsible for their own security, and should not rely on carriers for this except as part of a specific value-added agreement.
Summary: Servers, keep your hands off my e-mail and web pages! What I have written I have written, and if it's garbage that's my problem, not yours. If it really is a virus etc, I'll let you make that an exception, but you must have real evidence, not just an assumption that anything with a particular encoding is dangerous.
Well, that's my opinion, anyway.
-- Peter Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) http://www.qaya.org/
