ietf-nntp Feedback on the 9/3 nntpext.

[Larry Osterman (Exchange)]

	----------
	From:  Brian Hernacki [SMTP:bhern at netscape.com]
	Sent:  Thursday, September 04, 1997 10:13 AM
	To:  ietf-nntp at academ.com
	Subject:  ietf-nntp Feedback on the 9/3 nntpext.

	Here is some feedback on the 9/3 draft:

	4.
	        o The miminum timeout is required to be 10 minutes. I
don't
	think the RFC should specify a required minimum. 
	*******
	I disagree - the RFC SHOULD specify a required minimum to allow
clients to know how often they should poll the server to keep their
sessions alive.  This is consistant with the what is done for POP3 and
IMAP4.

	In particular, it's totally acceptable for a server to NOT
implement timeouts, however for a server that DOES implement timeouts,
clients need to know a minimum value below which they won't get dinged.

	******




	10.1
	        o This section specifies that the server should use the
"first
	unused number" for arriving articles. We may want to clairfy
this to say 
	"next sequential unused number".

	****
	If we change this wording, I'm concerned that clients may expect
that article numbers are monotonicly increasing, instead of strictly
increasing.  This becomes relevant if a message arrives, and is then
canceled, a client may be confused when it sees a hole in the article
id's.