[dev] Fwd: Re: Patch I submitted

[Jan Schneider]

Quoting Conor Kerr <conor at dev.ceon.net>:

> > You are wrong here.
> 
> I suppose depending on the case in question we are both wrong and both
> right.  However my case affects around 70% of people using email
> including most of the "general" users, yours affects considerably less
> and almost exclusively the more "advanced" users.  This is the real life
> situation we are in, I am willing to bet it will not be in danger of
> changing for many, many years.

Do you mind telling us where you have this number from? Wild guessing (on
both sides) about what the users' intentions might be, doesn't help us very
much here.
 
> >  The sender may actually have a good reason to
> > send an image as an attachment which should not be viewed inline.
> > To ignore the sender's wishes could potentially cause problems for the
> > receiver.  That means making the receiver's life more difficult, not
> > simpler.
> 
> You have taken a rather less probable case and are trying to use it to
> nullify any arguments by a HUGELY more probable case.

I personally don't think this case is less probable but again: This is a
personal point of view, I don't think anyone has any statistical numbers
about that.
 
> > If they were implemented in a more absolute and unfoundering way, then
> > you wouldn't be getting all those base64 encoded attachment disposition
> > images.  Your argument is flawed.
> 
> You could perceive it as flawed if you ignored what I said in my last
> post... I am talking about the real-life situation, not the idealistic
> one.  As I specifically said in my post I would *love* it if all the
> software of the world held up to worthwhile standards but we have to be
> realistic and practical.  I'm not intending to be offensive by saying so
> but you should really read any post carefully that you are going to
> reply to.

I don't understand you at all here. You say you would love to see all
software commiting to standards but want to break this rule for some
personal reasons in the same sentence. What do you think why Microsoft or
others are breaking standards? Because they think they know what users would
like to have (or because it's easier for them implement, but that's another
story). Most RFCs have seen years but at least months of thorough
discussions and thoughts.

Btw, if you follow the mailing lists regularly you would know that Eric is
one of the most patient repliers and usually reads and comments every single
line of a message where others (like me) already stopped reading long ago.
 
> <snip!>
> 
> > People sometimes email images for reasons other than viewing them!
> 
> Yes, I know,  I am well aware of the fact , that's why I created an
> option to disable this feature.  Usability dictates that the simplest
> and most general case should be used as standard but options provided to
> allow the more competent users to tailor system to their needs.

You may like it or not but we are at first addicted to standards (while
trying to handle data breaking these standards) and then to usability,
though these two don't interfere most of the time. This might be
programmer's view of things but as long as we don't have a marketing team in
 the project this probably won't change.

Standards have their meaning, are (mostly) well thought and ensure proper
interoperabilitiy between software pieces that are commited to these standards.

I understand that you have a different opinion about this but I think I
speak for the whole Horde team if I say we can stop this discussion here
because we won't apply this particular patch.

Of course this shouldn't stop you to patch your local version if you like
and to further submit patches that you think make sense.

Jan.

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