ietf-nntp Dropping the Distribution option from Newnews?

[Jon Ribbens]

Brian Hernacki <bhern at netscape.com> wrote:
> > There is currently a thread going on in news.software.nntp about
> > the newnews command. Apparently the Distribution option creates
> > serious problems in implementing the command efficiently. Any thoughts
> > on deleting this option?
> 
> Well, I imagine using NEWNEWS on the control group without being able to
> filter based on distribution might be bad. Collabra servers use
> distributions headers to differentiate between local and Usenet control
> messages.

Note that the INN implementation of this part of NEWNEWS is not
RFC-compliant anyway. "Distributions" in this context is *not*
intended to be the "Distribution:" header, but "the distribution
portion of an article's newsgroup", which appears to be "everything
up to the first '.'".

Keeping this feature "unchanged" as it currently actually exists
in the real world requires a change to the RFC.

Is Mr Kantor still around to elaborate on what was originally intended
for this feature?

Cheers


Jon
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