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From: David Nugent <davidn>
Message-Id: <199612190449.UAA29473@freefall.freebsd.org>
Subject: Re: 8-bit characters in gecos field
To: terry@lambert.org (Terry Lambert)
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 15:49:09 +1100 (EST)
Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199612182104.OAA10394@phaeton.artisoft.com> from "Terry Lambert" at Dec 18, 96 02:04:22 pm
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> > I've been entertaining the idea of having pw(8) allow 8-bit
> > characters in the passwd GECOS field. It was suggested earlier
> 
> This assumes that it supports the ESMTP extention "8BITMIME"; the
> unextended RFC821 (minimal implementation, no RFC1425 "EHLO")
> does not allow 8 bit characters.

So there is a provision that if you wish to use 8-bit in gecos,
you need a MIME mailer. I don't think that's such a big deal.
FreeBSD's default mailer (sendmail) supports it, and MIME support
is almost mandatory in most non-English speaking countries anyway
if you want to use anything other than English.

> You might also see problems with POP3 (but not IMAP4).

Perhaps our ports can be patched to do q-p translation if they
don't already? Most imap2bis servers support MIME in any case.


Regards,
David