ietf-nntp Section 11.5 - NEWNEWS

[Lee Kindness]

Paul Overell writes:
 > Whether from POSIX time or TAI or NTP or GPS or the speaking clock or a
 > video camera mounted on a sun dial :) - how a server obtains UTC is not
 > our problem.
 > The DATE command returns UTC.  It SHOULD be accurate.

Why? What in the spec requires an accurate time? I believe the DATE
command should return an arbitrary string/token - The client shouldn't
care in the slightest what it parses to - DATE is only really being
used to mark/note the time of the last NEWNEWS (or NEWGROUPS) command
issued. Clients should file this away and then resurrect it (and parse 
it slightly) for sending as an argument to the next NEWNEWS/NEWGROUPS
call...

 [c] DATE
 [s] 111 20001121113200
 [c] (stores date for future use, sends NEWGROUPS command with last
     saved date, or current (client) date)
 [c] QUIT

And on the next connection:

 [c] DATE
 [s] 111 20001122120000
 [c] NEWGROUPS 20001121 113200 GMT
 [s] 230 list of new newsgroups follows 
 [s] .
 [c] QUIT

The DATE command MAY be accurate.

I also think all references to UTC as command arguments should be
removed from the spec - this is not current practise and does not buy
us anything over just using GMT as the token. GMT and UTC are being
used interchangeably in the specification, so one token should
suffice.

Lee.