Re: [Nmh-workers] Changes to forw(1)

[Robert Elz]

    Date:        14 Oct 2016 13:46:58 -0600
    From:        "Andy Bradford" <address@hidden>
    Message-ID:  <address@hidden>

  | Why? What's  wrong with "X-"? If  the intent of  RFC 6648 is to  do away
  | with any special interpretation of "X-" in headers, then why make such a
  | statement thus  giving a new  special interpretation of  "X-"?

Technically, you're right, X- should be the same as A- or any other two
random (permitted) chars as the first two of a field name.  The issue is
that people don't think of it that way - because of its history, people
with a little (but not a lot) of knowledge of e-mail standards assume that
X- field names are special, so unless you really know what you're doing, it
is best to avoid it (which is what SHOULD NOT means.)

If you're working for a company called X Y Z Software Inc (or something)
and you want to name a new field X-Y-Z-myname no-one is going to question
it.  But if you just feel like inventing a new field and calling it X-myname
then you really should think again.

One of the nice things about the change (long ago now really) in the X-
rule, is that (if there were any benefit at all in doing it) the IETF is
now able to standardise the widely used X-Mailer field (without being
forced to change the name, and by so doing, making a big mess.)

kre