From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:mo
Newsgroups: net.followup
Title: Re: A Plea
Article-I.D.: ucbarpa.2512
Posted: Sun Nov  7 09:55:55 1982
Received: Tue Nov  9 09:10:09 1982

Your comments about case sensitivity in 822 "host" and "user" names
are partially incorrect and generally misleading.  The 822 specification
makes statements about the "interpretation" of fields.  Let me
explain further.

822 specifically says "user" names ARE case-sensitive and "host"
names are NOT case sensitive.  But NOWHERE does it say you must
send the "host" name case-folded.  It merely states the default
interpretation of a host name is case-insenitive.  I agree this is
probably a botch (and there are those of us lobbying to get that
changed).

So, for the moment, your admonishment is generally correct -
case distinctions in host names are difficult to deal with
(but could be special-cased in the UUCP domain!!!), but user
names are required to be case-sensitive.  This doesn't mean
Unix sites have to stop folding case for user names, but they
can allow mixed case user names (oh, the things that would break!!!).
But it DOES mean Unix mailers had better not screw with the case
of user names when sending mail if you EVER intend to get mail
to someone on a Multics system.

	-Mike