ietf-nntp 32/64 bit question

[Anton Chr. Lauridsen]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles Lindsey [mailto:chl at clerew.man.ac.uk] 
> Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 2:35 AM
> To: ietf-nntp at academ.com
> Subject: Re: ietf-nntp 32/64 bit question
> 
> In <20031012090613.GE23726 at finch-staff-1.thus.net> "Clive 
> D.W. Feather" <clive at demon.net> writes:
> 
> >The way to do it is for you to define a BIGNUM extension. 
> Then a server 
> >can respond
> 
> >    401 BIGNUM Article numbers exceed 2**32
> 
> Or you could say servers SHOULD do it.
> 
> Or, if partial compliance is too big a stigma to carry, 
> perhaps some weasel words could be written to say that 
> implementors "Ought" to try to do better.
> 
> But I don't think we want to push any harder than that at the 
> present time (certainly not if we have 2000 years to do it in).
> 
The important thing for me is a means to support more than 4 bilion
posts in one group. The original RFC is dated back in 1986, back then 4
bilion was an incredible large number. I do not believe in the 2000
years margin, I believe that the increase in posts will be non-liniar.

A BIGNUM exension will work just fine for now. I am wrong no harm has
been done, if I am right, almost all servers and readers will eventually
have to support this extension.

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