ietf-nntp Dropping the Distribution option from Newnews?

[Brian Kantor]

>First, Brian, I would have appreciated a comment on the original question:
>Should the Distribution option be dropped? Is it too little benefit to be
>worth the trouble implementing it?

I can't say - these days I'm out of the mainstream on clients and
I really don't have a feel for how useful it will be.  I'm spending
what little time I have to devote to news to a next-generation
design, which will probably not be compatable.

I doubt the newnews distribution option is used very much.

Newnews distribution is EASY to implement, it's just very expensive
- you have to open each article and read the distribution lines before
you can decide to tell your client about it.  11 years ago when we
designed it, that was acceptable because there wasn't all that much
news and you didn't expect to have all that many neighbors who would
be using it.  None of the existing code did use it.

Had current news systems been designed with doing NEWNEWS in mind, none
of its operations would be expensive.  What I don't know is how much
'newnews' is used, so I'm unable to judge whether it's worth the hassle
to do properly or just give it up.
	- Brian