usefor-article-09 February 2003

4.4.3.  The NEWS-8BIT-HEADERS IMAP Extension

[This section is highly tentative, and serves as a placeholder to
indicate that an IMAP extension will be needed in order to ensure
consistency with the present form of this draft. It shows the minimum
extension that seems to be necessary, and would require significant
further work for any final version.]

   The current IMAP4 protocol [RFC 2060] forbids 8-bit characters in
   headers (so as to conform with the previous Netnews standard [RFC
   1036] amd with the current Email standards).
[That reference to RFC 2060 should be changed to refer to [RFC 2060bis]
if that has been accepted by the time this standard is published.]

   Implementations of IMAP4 conforming to this extension MUST

   1. In the case of Netnews messages only, accept 8-bit octets in
      headers (part specifiers HEADER or MIME, or the header portion of
      a MESSAGE/RFC822 part) and pass them on to the client unchanged in
      any FETCH response;

   2. Interpret all octets in such headers as being in the UTF-8
      charset;

   3. Include the capability NEWS-8BIT-HEADERS in any CAPABILITY
      response.

        NOTE: It is the responsibility of the client to interpret such
        headers. Users who require to see them displayed correctly will
        need to acquire clients with the necessary UTF-8 facilities.

   The new capability NEWS-8BIT-HEADERS is to be registered with IANA.
[Memo: remember to update the IANA Considerations section.]