Subject: Antwort: Re: history of using a comment for display-name?

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 11:18:42 +0100

RFC 680 is online at:  http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/htbin/rfc/rfc680.html

MfG

B.Garmann

[email-masked] (Kai Henningsen) am 15.03.2001 23:03:00

An:   [email-masked]
Kopie:     (Blindkopie: Bernhard Garmann/EXTERN/VIAGInterkom)

Thema:    Re: history of using a comment for display-name?

[email-masked] (Dave Crocker)  wrote on 12.03.01 in
<[email-masked]>:

> At 04:27 AM 3/12/2001, Sam Roberts wrote:
> >Does anybody know when the habit of using a comment after
> >the addr-spec started? It seems strange to me that
> >anybody would do that, when RFC 822 already had a way to
> >associate a phrase with an address.
> >
> >Did the practice predate the rfc? It seems brain-damaged.
>
> RFC822 did not adequately describe name <address> as the required form.  I
> believe that sendmail started the practise of doing address (name).

It looks like RFC 724 (12 May 1977, Pogran, Vittal, Crocker, Henderson)
introduced both the phrase and the comment. (Neither are in 561, and 680
is not online.) From the descriptions, it seems that the phrase was
supposed to be meaningful to the MTA, whereas the examples for the comment
show usage for human-readable names.

RFC 733 is already very much like 822, even though it still talks about
FTP servers.

MfG Kai