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<DIV><SPAN class=882242815-11102003><FONT face=Arial size=2>I am afraid that I
am opening up an old debate, but considering that this protocol is going to live
for quite some years into the future wouldn't it be appropriate to remove the 32
bit limitation on article numbers?</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=882242815-11102003><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=882242815-11102003><FONT face=Arial size=2>Paragraph 6
states:</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=882242815-11102003><FONT face=Arial size=2>"<FONT
size=3>Article numbers MUST lie between 1 and 4,294,967,295 inclusive.
The<BR> client and server SHOULD NOT use leading zeroes in
specifying article<BR> numbers, and MUST NOT use more than 16
digits. In some situations,<BR> the value zero replaces an article
number to show some special<BR>
situation."</FONT></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=882242815-11102003><FONT face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=882242815-11102003><FONT face=Arial>After all nothing prevents
servers to remain at a 32 bit value internally if the implementer does not want
to "waste" the additional 4 bytes per message. Newsreaders on the other hand
will be dimensioned according to this limitation. In an not all to distant
future megabit connections and terabyte disks will be
commonplace.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=882242815-11102003><FONT face=Arial></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=882242815-11102003><FONT
face=Arial>/anton</FONT></SPAN></DIV></BODY></HTML>