[Web-SIG] FW: Closing #63: RFC2047 encoded words

[Brian Smith]

Robert Brewer wrote:
> Brian Smith wrote:
> > Here is the change that removes the use of RFC 2047 from HTTP in 
> > HTTPbis.
> 
> Yes, but parsers need to continue decoding them for many years to come.
> IMO WSGI origin servers should do this so we can write the decoding 
> logic once and forget about it (assuming middleware and apps far 
> outnumber origin servers).

No, it really is better for WSGI implementations to completely avoid RFC
2047. None of the HTTP specifications ever specified how RFC 2047 was to be
used in HTTP. RFC 2616 vaguely suggested the use of RFC 2047 but it was
never integrated into any part of the grammar. In the long discussions on
this topic in the HTTP working group, nobody ever presented a real-life
example where RFC 2047 encoding has actually been used. The hypothetical
examples that were presented in the discussion were found to violate RFC
2047 and/or other parts of the HTTP specification. Nobody ever presented an
example (even hypothetical) using RFC 2047 encoding that the working group
agreed was valid.