ietf-nntp Section 11.5 - NEWNEWS

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Paul Overell said:
> Because in 1986 (the date of RFC977) the basis of civil time was (and
> still is) UTC.

Where ? Because in the United Kingdom the basis of civil time was and is
GMT. Allow me to point you at:
<http://www.hmso.gov.uk/si/si1997/97298201.htm>
(The Summer Time Order 1997), the Interpretation Act 1978, and the
Definition of Time Act 1880 (the latter two don't appear to be on the Web).

The Coordinated Universal Time Bill never got through Parliament.

>> If we give a quantity, the client knows how much slack to allow when doing
>> the DATE/NEWNEWS thing. I think that's a good idea.
> 
> I fully agree that recommending that clients use some slack with NEWNEWS
> and NEWGROUPS is a good idea - that's just good defensive programming.  
> 
> I'm far less happy about specifying an explicit tolerance on a server's
> clock.  If the server has the same inaccuracy as the client slack then
> we are right at the edge of losing articles in NEWNEWS.

But if my client allows 3 minutes and the server is out by 5 minutes I'm in
trouble anyway. What is a sensible aount of slack ? We should say. 

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather  | Work:  <clive at demon.net>   | Tel:  +44 20 8371 1138
Internet Expert     | Home:  <clive at davros.org>  | Fax:  +44 20 8371 1037
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