CURRENT MEETING REPORT

Minutes from the BOF on
sending HTML-formatted messages in e-mail
at the IETF meeting in Dallas, December 1995

Reported by Jacob Palme <[email protected]>


1. Several implementations are already ready or well under
  way which provide e-mail with the functionality of sending
  HTML-formatted messages. An IETF standard on how to send such
  messages is urgently needed. Representatives of three such
  ongoing implementations identified themselves at the BOF
  meeting (Mark Joseph at Wollongong, Alex Hopmann at Resnova
  and Jacob Palme at Stockholm University/KTH). One more
  ongoing implementation is known but was not represented
  at the meeting (Martin R Raskovsky at Atelier).

2. Even though the BOF was held during the lunch hour (the
  only empty slot available for us) 18 people participated in
  the BOF meeting.

3. The BOF decided to ask IESG to start an IETF working group
  on the topic of "Sending HTML in e-mail". A tentative acronym
  for the new group is MHTML or MAILHTML.

4. We discussed the scope for the new working group and
  agreed on the following:

4a. The main task of the new working group is defining how to
   send HTML messages in e-mail in a way which allows
   interoperability between WWW and e-mail systems.


4b. The result might produce both a standard and an informa-
   tional RFC, since some issues (like URLs referring
   to embedded objects) might require standards, while
   other issues might be handled by informational RFCs.
   The group will also consider using existing or forth-
   coming standards, like Multipart/related and Content-
   Disposition. The group might want to modify Content-
   Disposition. The group might want to ask IESG to shift
   Multipart/related and Content-Disposition from experi-
   mental to standards track, if this is needed for the
   task of this group.



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4c. The group should develop standards which are suitable
   for both combined web browsers and e-mail software and
   separate e-mail software which uses web browsers as helper
   applications to display HTML-formatted e-mail body parts.

4d. The working group should develop a standard which works
   for both connected and disconnected e-mail user agents.

4e. The goal for the working group should be to allow full
   HTML documents to be sent as e-mail without changes to them.
   If however, the HTML documents contain hyperlinks to other
   body parts in the same message, the group may identify
   requirements on the format of such hyperlinks.

4f. The group might identify new MIME headers or MIME header
   parameters. However, changes to the HTML or SMTP speci-
   fications are however not within the scope of the group.

4g. The group shall not develop standards for the
   following tasks, but will consider these tasks in
   order to develop a standard which is a suitable basis
   for them:

   - Web browsing via e-mail (i.e. mail servers which give
     access to WWW databases).

   - Forms and other embedded executable content.

   - Sending PDF (=Adobe Acrobat) format documents via e-mail.

5. The following  tentative schedule was agreed upon:

  March 1996: Clarify issues and a first draft text for the
  standards.

  June 1996: Rough consensus on the major contents of the
  standard.

  Fall 1996: At least two independent and interworking
  implementations. (Four such implementations underway are
  already known to exist.)

  December 1996: Finish and submit standards track proposal.

  It would be an advantage if the group work would go even
  faster than this.

6. We propose
  Ed Levinson <[email protected]> as a chairman and
  Jacob Palme <[email protected]> as an editor.

7. Pete Resnick <[email protected]> promised to develop
  charter for the new group.

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Minutes from Dallas BOF on HTML in e-mail      December 1995


8. Jacob Palme has started a mailing list for the group. The
  name of the mailing list is
  [email protected].

  To subscribe to the list, send a message to
      [email protected]
  which contains the text
  sub mhtml <your name (not your e-mail address)>

  Archives are available by anonymous ftp from
     ftp://segate.sunet.se/DISK2:[AFTP.LISTS.MHTML]mhtml.log9512
  or with shorter message headers from
     ftp://segate.sunet.se/DISK2:[AFTP.LISTS.MHTML]mhtml.digest
  The archives are also available by e-mail. Send a message
  with the text
  get mhtml log9512
  or
  get mhtml digest
  to [email protected]

9. We did not have much time to discuss the technical issues,
  but below is reported some problems identified:

9a. One problem is the requirements of two developer
   communities, one which develop combined web browsers and e-
   mail systems, and one which develop e-mail systems which are
   capable of showing HTML messages by using web browsers as
   helper applications. These communities may have different
   requirements, and solutions must be found which satisfy both
   communities.

9b. Another problem is that we want to develop proposed IETF
   standards, but we might also wish to use functionality which
   is or which will be experimental IETF standards
   (examples: (a) the Multipart/related content type (b) the
   Content-Disposition mime header). On the one hand, it seems
   silly not to use already defined functionality, on the other
   hand, IETF might not allow proposed standards to reference
   experimental standards. We need advice from the area
   directors on this.

10. Using Multipart/related was preferred if IETF rules allow
   it. In particular, we noted that the MIME specification states
   that multipart/unknown is to be treated as multipart/mixed,
   which means that multipart/related will work also with
   receiving mail systems which do not understand
   multipart/related.

11. If HTML documents with relative URLs are sent as e-mail,
   then the base for these relative URLs might be indicated in
   three ways:

   (a) Using a BASE element within the HTML document.


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Minutes from Dallas BOF on HTML in e-mail      December 1995


   (b) Using a MIME header indicating the originating URI of the
       HTML document itself, such a header might be named Content-
       Location.


   (c) Using a MIME header indicating the base for relative URI-s
       within the MIME message, such a header might be named Base or
       Content-Base and is already specified in RFC 1808.

12. We discussed the syntax for embedding URLs in MIME messages.
   We noted that several different IETF work items have
   encountered this problem, and that the same syntax should be
   used in all cases where URL-s are needed in MIME messages.
   The most fully developed solution is specified in
   "draft-ietf-mailext-acc-url-01.txt", so we agreed to use this
   syntax. In particular, this syntax indicates that double-
   quotes (") are to be used to delimit the URL.

13. A large number of other issues were identified, based on
   the discussions in the [email protected] mailing list,
   but which we did not have time to discuss during the meeting.

































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