ietf-nntp Draft 17 pre-2

[Charles Lindsey]

In <ylof4wuq5z.fsf at windlord.stanford.edu> Russ Allbery <rra at stanford.edu> writes:

>Another possible approach to this would be to state that LIST OVERVIEW.FMT
>is optional and should only be implemented if the implementation can
>guarantee that what it returns is consistent with the entire overview
>database.  But even this doesn't address the question of what happens if
>the headers that go into the overview database change during the course of
>a single NNTP session.

I think the OVERVIEW.FMT is no use at all if it doesn't tell the truth, so
I would agree with you on that basis.

But will someone please tell me why the overview database should ever
change during the course of a single NNTP session? Does this actually
happen, and is there some benefit in it?

The only case I can think of is where an NNTPserver is actually a
front-end for two news servers, some groups being on one and other on the
other. And they both supply operviews differently.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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