Email Address Internationalization (eai)
----------------------------------------

 Charter
 Last Modified: 2010-06-08

 Current Status: Active Working Group

 Chair(s):
     John Klensin  <john-ietf@jck.com>
     Joseph Yee  <jyee@ca.afilias.info>

 Applications Area Director(s):
     Alexey Melnikov  <alexey.melnikov@isode.com>
     Peter Saint-Andre  <stpeter@stpeter.im>

 Applications Area Advisor:
     Alexey Melnikov  <alexey.melnikov@isode.com>

 Secretary(ies):
     Jiankang Yao  <yaojk@cnnic.cn>

 Mailing Lists: 
     General Discussion:ima@ietf.org
     To Subscribe:      https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ima
     Archive:           http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ima

Description of Working Group:

The email address has two parts, local part and domain part.
Email address internationalization must deal with both. This
working group's previous experimental efforts investigated the
use of UTF-8 as a general approach to email
internationalization.  That approach is based on the use of an
SMTP extension to enable the use of UTF-8 in envelope address
local-parts, optionally in address domain-parts, and in mail
headers.  The mail header contexts can include both addresses
and wherever existing protocols (e.g., RFC 2231) permit the use
of encoded-words.

All WG deliverables specified under the original charter,
particularly the experimental protocol specifications, have
been completed.  The core specifications have been implemented
and interoperability tests performed.  The WG is now being
rechartered to permit advancing revised versions of those
specifications and supporting documents into the standards
track.

As a result of implementation and testing experience, the WG
has concluded to drop the model of in-transit
downgrading that was a key part of the original effort.
In-transit downgrading approaches simply do not work well
enough and predictably enough to be worth the considerable
additional complexity that accompanies them.  In particular,
dropping in-transit downgrading eliminates the need for the
first significant change to the syntax of an email address
since RFC 821 and 822 were published in 1982.

Work will therefore reflect a "no fallback" approach.  That
approach provides a very minimal transition mechanism, but is
consistent with the long-term view that email with invalid
addresses or syntax should be rejected, rather than fixed up in
transit between submission servers and delivery servers.
Discoverable fallback addresses that could be applied before or
during message submission or after SMTP "final delivery" may be
investigated.  The WG may also develop other materials to give
advice to implementers or operators.  Those efforts may lead to
informational documents or best practices recommendations, but
are considered independent of the core documents.  Work on them
will progress only under the condition that it not delay the
primary standards track specifications.

The WG believes that the lessons learned from implementation
and testing and removal of in-transit downgrading as a goal
eliminates all major areas of controversy about the core
specifications and should permit very rapid progress.  Such
rapid progress is an explicit goal for the WG; issues resolved
in the past will not be revisited unless those who wish to do
so can demonstrate data, reasoning, or consequences that were
not considered earlier.  At the same time, any attempt to
significantly extend an established and widely deployed set of
protocols may uncover new consequences or side effects that
need consideration and evaluation.  If faced with a choice
between spending time on such new considerations, the WG will
favor getting things right over accelerating the schedule.

Deliverables

The following deliverables are foreseen in this charter. The WG
chairs may (re)structure the deliverables into specific
documents or document sets as needed. Adding or removing
documents other than those listed below as "Required" or
"Additional" will require a charter update.

Required Documents (these are the "core specifications"
referred to elsewhere)

* Overview and Framework for Internationalized
  Email, replacing RFC 4952 (Informational or Proposed
  Standard at IESG discretion once complete)

* UTF-8 SMTP extension specification, replacing RFC 5336
 (Proposed Standard)

* Header format specification, replacing RFC 5335 (Proposed
 Standard)

* Internationalized DSN specification, replacing RFC 5337
 (Proposed Standard)

* UTF-8 POP specification, replacing RFC 5721 (Proposed
 Standard)

* UTF-8 IMAP specification, replacing RFC 5738 (Proposed
 Standard)

Additional possible documents suggested.  While milestones are
listed for most of these documents, they may be dropped by the
WG with the consent of the Responsible AD.

* Advice for MUA implementors (Informational or BCP)

* Advice for EAI deployment (Informational or BCP)

* Advice for non-ASCII and ASCII addresses for the same mailbox
 (Informational or BCP)

* Mailinglist (Informational or Standards Track, replacing
 draft-eai-mailinglist)

* Mailto (Proposed Standard, updating draft-duerst-mailto-bis
 to reflect internationalized addresses)

* Protocol extensions for RFC 4409 Submission Servers or
 configuration advice for the MUA->Submission server interface.

 Goals and Milestones:

   Done         Overview/architecture draft first 

   Done         Interworking scenarios first draft 

   Done         SMTP Extensions first draft 

   Done         Header format first draft 

   Done         Downgrading in IMAP first draft 

   Done         Downgrading in SMTP first draft 

   Done         Downgrading in POP first draft 

   Done         Overview/architecture draft to IESG 

   Done         SMTP Extensions to IESG 

   Done         Header format to IESG 

   Done         Downgrading in SMTP to IESG 

   Done         Downgrading in POP to IESG 

   Done         Downgrading in IMAP to IESG 

   Done         Discussion of Recharter for standards track at IETF 77 

   May 2010       New charter approval from IESG 

   Jul 2010       EAI Framework to IESG 

   Sep 2010       Headers to IESG 

   Sep 2010       SMTP to IESG 

   Sep 2010       DSN to IESG 

   Nov 2010       IMAP & POP3 to IESG 

   Dec 2010       Decision about possible changes or comments about Submission 
                Servers. If the decision is to generate a document, the 
                decision will include a schedule. 

   Jan 2011       Advice for non-ASCII & ASCII addresses to IESG 

   Jan 2011       Advice for MUA implementors to IESG 

   Jan 2011       Advice for EAI deployment to IESG 

   Apr 2011       Mailinglist to IESG 

   Apr 2011       Mailto (Proposed Standard) to IESG 


 Internet-Drafts:

Posted Revised         I-D Title   <Filename>
------ ------- --------------------------------------------
Jun 2010 Sep 2010   <draft-ietf-eai-frmwrk-4952bis-10.txt>
                Overview and Framework for Internationalized Email 

Jun 2010 Dec 2010   <draft-ietf-eai-rfc5336bis-07.txt>
                SMTP Extension for Internationalized Email Address 

Jul 2010 Dec 2010   <draft-ietf-eai-rfc5335bis-06.txt>
                Internationalized Email Headers 

Sep 2010 Sep 2010   <draft-ietf-eai-rfc5721bis-00.txt>
                POP3 Support for UTF-8 

Oct 2010 Oct 2010   <draft-ietf-eai-popimap-downgrade-00.txt>
                Post-delivery Message Downgrading for Internationalized Email 
                Messages 

Oct 2010 Oct 2010   <draft-ietf-eai-rfc5337bis-dsn-01.txt>
                Internationalized Delivery Status and Disposition Notifications 

Nov 2010 Nov 2010   <draft-ietf-eai-5378bis-00.txt>
                IMAP Support for UTF-8 

 Request For Comments:

  RFC   Stat Published     Title
------- -- ----------- ------------------------------------
RFC4952 I    Jul 2007    Overview and Framework for Internationalized Email 

RFC5335 E    Sep 2008    Internationalized Email Headers 

RFC5336 E    Sep 2008    SMTP Extension for Internationalized Email Addresses 

RFC5337 E    Sep 2008    Internationalized Delivery Status and Disposition 
                       Notifications 

RFC5504 E    Mar 2009    Downgrading Mechanism for Email Address 
                       Internationalization 

RFC5721 E    Feb 2010    POP3 Support for UTF-8 

RFC5738 E    Mar 2010    IMAP Support for UTF-8 

RFC5825 E    Apr 2010    Displaying Downgraded Messages for Email Address 
                       Internationalization 

RFC5983 E    Oct 2010    Mailing Lists and Internationalized Email Addresses