ietf-nntp LIST EXTENSIONS and the leading space revisted

[greg andruk]

[possibly a duplicate, it finally dawned on me that I'd never got
around to subscribing to the posting list.  Duh.]

A while back there were questions about the LIST EXTENSIONS output
format, specifically about whether the leading space should be
retained.

At that time, it was thought best to leave it in, to preserve
compatibility with Netscape's newsreaders.

Well, I decided because of a thread today in news.software.nntp to
implement the LIST PRETTYNAMES extension in nnrpd, and found out how
it works in real life.

Netscape's newsreader (4.73) doesn't like the leading space.  I was
only able to convince it that the LISTPNAMES extension existed if I
removed all the leading whitespace from the LIST EXTENSIONS output.

Complementing this is the output of the Collabra swerver at
secnews.netscape.com.  Its LIST EXTENSIONS output does not use the
leading spaces.

For compatibility with what is probably the only widely deployed
client that actually uses the extension mechanism, can we drop that
whitespace?