🚀 go-pugleaf

utstat is now nuking all lines of Illegal-Object: headers.

Illegal-Object: is indeed mentioned, along with Illegal-Field:, on page
10 of RFC 886 (Proposed Standard for Message Header Munging), which
starts off by saying ``This memo proposes a standard for the ARPA
Internet community.''.  Now that the ARPAnet is a trivial network and
NSFnet is the ``Internet'', it is not obvious that this memo carries
any force today, if it ever did (I'm afraid I don't have the energy to
devote to keeping up with the RFC du jour and the latest fashions in
mailer science).  Whether or not the defunct ARPAnet ever endorsed RFC
886, to the best of my knowledge no other mail system conforms to RFC
886, nor should any.  Just as mail systems regularly violate RFCs 821 &
822 to get the mail through, RFC 886 should be ignored.  Header munging
is a mortal sin unless performed at the point of origin or at a
translating gateway between dissimilar networks (e.g. RFC 821/2 to
X.400).  (Header deleting is only a venial sin, since it wouldn't be
necessary if other software refrained from excreting such wretched
headers.)

In any case, RFC 886 applies only to mail (``This memo describes the
rules that are to be used when mail is transformed from one standard
format to another.''); Illegal-Objects: should not litter our netnews.
-- 
Geoff Collyer	utzoo!utstat!geoff, geoff@utstat.toronto.edu
It's all Henry's fault. (TM)