On 4 Jan 2013, at 10:12, Michael Blessenohl <blessen...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> If there are 'bad ideas' in standards, then why aren't the standards changed? Because it's hard. And even if improved standards emerge from the IETF - ha! - there may not be the business or technical incentives to adopt them. Or there's too much inertia in the installed base to upgrade/migrate. The current state of IPv6 adoption is perhaps the best illustration of this. Frankly, your plan to use of the '@' character in the local part of an email address is crazy. There doesn't appear to be a credible reason for doing or needing this. It violates the key principle of the Internet: be conservative in what you send and liberal about what you receive. Just because the protocol specs permit at signs in the local part of an email address doesn't mean it's a good idea or that it should be deployed. [Dots in domain name labels are also legal and an equally very, very bad idea too.] Perhaps you will see sense when you find your mail failing in weird ways and your users complain. Remember too that it's not just mail server behaviour that will be an issue. Email addresses with two (or more?) at signs in them will break web forms that ask for an email address. These addresses will almost certainly break address book and calendaring applications too. Good luck getting a certificate or PGP key for one of these funky addresses and making it work reliably. Or getting one of these addresses added to a mailing list. So go ahead and knock yourself out with these bizarre email addresses. After all it's your choice and you'll have to deal with the consequences. I look forward to never hearing from your mail server.
