ietf-nntp WG Review of draft-dfncis-netnews-admin-sys-05.txt

[Russ Allbery]

ned <ned+ietf-nntp at innosoft.com> writes:

> Folks, some time ago I asked people to have a look at this draft and to
> decide what should be done with it. I don't believe a consensus ever
> emerged as to how to proceed on this. Additionally, a new version has
> been published that may change things.

> I'd therefore like to ask people to review this document and weigh in
> with opinions as to how it should be handled. There are various
> possibilities, including but not limited to:

> (3) OK but not quite ready for prime time. Publish as experimental.

This is my opinion.  It's not clear to me that this is the right way to
solve the problem, and in particular it's not clear to me if it's
worthwhile to invent a new network protocol just to address this problem.

The protocol adds a lot of potentially useful features in terms of
distributing more meta-information about groups than would be available
using a pure NNTP solution.  If people actually want and use all of that
meta-information, I think the protocol would be worthwhile.  If they
don't, I think that scripts that just use LIST ACTIVE against a known
server will prove more popular.  I think we need to see what people
actually use the protocol for to be able to tell which direction things
will go.

I could, however, be misreading the distinction between experimental and
proposed standard.

(My inclination is also to pick either A or C, since I'd rather not hold
up their document until this working group finishes its already pending
work.  After we get the base specification done, we have several
long-standing extensions like streaming that probably take top priority.)

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>