Text 10310, 53 rader
Skriven 2010-09-09 11:19:08 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
  Kommentar till text 10303 av Dale Shipp (1:261/1466.0)
Ärende: Re: 8-bit codes
=======================
DS>WD> EP1 and P4 have been developped during a time when growth
DS>WD> of Fidonet was a daily matter and nobody had any idea where
DS>WD> it was going to.
 
DS> And do you believe that EP1 is a currently accepted policy in zone 2 as
DS> Michiel claims of you?
 
"Believing" is something you do in a church. Believing means "Not knowing but
taking for granted because someone else has told you so".
 
EP1 and P4 are interesting guidelines to live by to make this hobby work,
however one needs to consider that at least one of these was forced down our
throats basically on the the threat that "... or else you'll lose a good
thing!" meaning cut-off from worldwide mail-distribution which mainly was run
and decided in ...you guessed it ... zone-1 without any concern of the
feelings, ideas, wishes, whatever from other zones.
 
It is best described by the wording taken out of EP1 which states:
 
  "V.18. ... This is not intended to discourage participation of foreign
  zones or networks, which may permit said characters."
 
Think about it ... what is a "foreign zone"? From our point of view zone-2
certainly is not foreign at all. The wording alone implies a lot of things and
whoever is open to it can read a lot of things in it.
 
Other than that, the same paragraph has a major goof. It says verbatin
"ASCII 128-255" ... there is no such thing. But when reading the whole
paragraph in its absolute meaning, then we come to the situation that:
 
1) Higher-ASCII 128-255 cannot be used in Zone-1 (for which this document
   obviously was intended)
2) Other zones than "1" can perfectly use high-ascii 128-255. But ... we 
   don't exactly know what a "foreign" zone is, and if we don't know that
   then we have no idea whichone the "not foreign zone" is. We can only
   assume.
3) Echomailprocessors are not allowed to strip non-standard characters, they
   must be passed "as is"
4) Conclusion: zone-1 echomailprocessors must pass zone-2 high-ascii messages
   unaltered but by doing so are in breach with the non high-ascii rule
   from 1).
 
My opinion is that there was a brain-lapse occuring when that was invented,
whether it was a temporary or permanent brain-lapse I cannot say.
 
Now I'm going to have some fresh coffee ... real coffee ... not roasted
hazelnut with a scent of vanilla and still call it coffee. Just allow me to say
that Starbucks sucks.
 
 \%/@rd

--- D'Bridge 3.54
 * Origin: Many Glacier -- Protect - Preserve - Recycle (2:292/854)