ietf-nntp NNTP AUTH draft update

Chris Newman chris.newman at INNOSOFT.COM
Wed Nov 17 09:32:40 PST 1999


I'd like to get constructive comments on this issue -- I'm relatively
agnostic about the solution.  It's easy to say a draft is wrong, but that's
worthless.  If you want to comment, please say how to fix the draft.

I can't say I'm particularly fond of "LIST EXTENSIONS" having side-effects
from a protocol design standpoint.  But backwards compatibility regularly
compromises good design.

The only suggestions I've heard are:

(1) do the "LIST EXTENSIONS" kludge to fix the error codes, and let the
clients who implemented LIST EXTENSIONS from a draft break (so they get
what they deserve).

(2) reserve x8x for authentication and create a new response code set for
private extensions.  As a side effect, this retroactively declares all
private extensions using x8x for purposes other than AUTHINFO as
non-compliant -- retroactive non-compliance declarations are generally
frowned upon in the IETF.  This choice would only be practical if a strong
statement can be made that the retroactive impact will be extremely minor
(e.g., are x8x error codes used _only_ for authentication?)

Any other options?

Does anyone want to try to make a strong case for option 2?

		- Chris






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