Subject: IP: Microsoft breaks Mime specification

From: David Farber <[email-masked]> (by way of Einar Stefferud)
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 13:37:02 -0800

This needs to be given some attention in the IETF...\Stef

>Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 11:25:45 +0000 (GMT Standard Time)
>From: Frode Greisen <[email-masked]>
>To: David Farber <[email-masked]>
>
>Dave
>
>Using Pine as my mailer I found Microsoft XP outlook users could not read
>my attachments. We found this was due to a bug in Microsoft's Outlook XP
>mail user agent. Other non-MS mailers may have seen similar problems.
>
>As of this writing, Microsoft has acknowledged the bug but has not added
>it to the Knowledge Base. We have been told that there will be a
>post-SP1 hotfix for Outlook XP. This particular bug has bug fix number
>OfficeQFE:4781. The nature of the bug is that messages with attachments
>which contain a Content-ID header (which standard Pine attachments do)
>do not show the attachment indicator (a paperclip) when viewed with
>Outlook XP. So the user has no indication that the message contains an
>attachment.
>
>Pine has produced an option to remove the content-id header which is
>part of the Mime specification but which is probably not much used.
>
>The problem is that due to the Market share of Microsoft an error in a
>Microsoft program may force non-Microsoft users to make changes, and
>possibly also imply a loss of mail functionality.
>
>Frode

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From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 14:40:41 +0100

> This needs to be given some attention in the IETF...\Stef

ok.  i give.  why?

there are only a few thousand of us, far too few to fix microsoft's
bugs.  and we don't have the source anyway.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 13:12:13 -0500

> bugs.  and we don't have the source anyway.

We can't fix their bugs.

>possibly also imply a loss of mail functionality.

There *is* the 800-pound gorilla problem here.  If one company with
significant market share manages to Do It Very Wrongly, it leaves everybody
else having to decide between being able to follow the standard, or being
able to intercommunicate.

There's been a lot of discussion on the NANOG mailing list regarding a
certain router vendor with high market share, whos gear will forward a
bad BGP route and *then* reset the session, rather than the other way
around - this is generally acknowledged to be against the spec, and has
caused a lot of operational problems.  Interestingly enough, most of
the problems are seen on *other* people's gear - the offending vendor's
stuff manages to survive the ensuing badness.

-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
				Virginia Tech

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From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 12:21:35 -0700 (MST)

> From: [email-masked]

> ...
> ...

Bugs that cause operational problems in the network such as routing flaps
might be reasonably announced in the IETF's main list.  This particular
bug does sound likely to affect the operation of the Internet itself.
It also does not not sound as serious as other bugs in Microsoft MUAs,
such as the one that puts the wrong MIME boundary string in the header
and so causes receiving causing MUAs to think the message is empty.

The internal bug reporting mailing list for any large company would
have far too much traffic to be forwarded to the IETF's mailing list.
Let's not try to imagine what a mailing list devoted to bugs in
Microsoft software would be like, given Microsoft's many products and
world leading attention to quality.  (If you're not in the middle of
the pack, your salescritters will claim you're leading, and never mind
the direction.)

In other words, let's let those who are forced to use Microsoft MUAs
software (including indirectly by sending mail to people who insist
on using Microsoft MUAs) find their own wailing wall.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]