ietf-nntp RFC 2980 replacement

[Jeffrey M. Vinocur]

Ok, so RFC 2980 could use a replacement, considering how it will become
even more inaccurate once a bunch of its commands are incorporated into
the new NNTP spec.  So, a quick rundown of what's currently there;
correct me if I've gotten anything wrong.


1.  Commands in the running for 2980bis:

    - CHECK
    - TAKETHIS

    It should be easy to do a spec for these.  I believe that some
    people use TAKETHIS without CHECK -- but are there any servers that
    support TAKETHIS only (or restrict access to CHECK)?  If so, we'd
    need to have the output of LIST EXTENSIONS indicate exactly what is
    permitted.

    - LIST SUBSCRIPTIONS

    Do we want an extension for this?  Does anybody actually use it?
    Anyway, certainly easy to include if desired.


2.  Commands on our collective TODO list (mine especially):

    - AUTHINFO
    - (X)PAT

    AUTHINFO is on my shoulders, I haven't forgotten.  PAT may become an
    extension at some point in the future.


3.  Commands that as far as I know are headed gently to the TCP
    connection in the sky:

    - XREPLIC
    - XGTITLE
    - XINDEX
    - XPATH
    - XROVER
    - XTHREAD


4.  Commands etc that have been incorporated into the new standard
    directly or as standard extensions:

    - the section defining wildmat patterns
    - LIST (ACTIVE / ACTIVE.TIMES / DISTRIBUTIONS / DISTRIB.PATS /
      NEWSGROUPS / OVERVIEW.FMT)
    - LISTGROUP
    - MODE READER
    - DATE


5.  Commands with equivalents in the new spec:

    - MODE STREAM

    I'm not actually very familiar with MODE STREAM, but I believe it
    has two uses:  (1) check for support for pipelining as is already
    described in the new spec, and (2) check for support for CHECK and
    TAKETHIS (since the client can't simply try a TAKETHIS and see it
    fails), which LIST EXTENSIONS should take care of.  However, do we
    want some sort of legacy support here?

    - XHDR
    - XOVER

    The new spec has HDR and OVER, but again, some mention of these in
    2980bis could be possible.
    

6.  Headers described as additional to those in 1036:

    - NNTP-Posting-Host
    - X-Newsreader "and others"

    In my mind these belong to Usefor and thus can be ignored for our
    purposes.


-- 
Jeffrey M. Vinocur
jeff at litech.org