[ietf-nntp] draft-hoffman-rfc1738bis-02.txt

[Russ Allbery]

Charles Lindsey <chl at clerew.man.ac.uk> writes:

> Well we discussed this briefly when the previous draft of this came out,
> and I think it was said then that the 'news' scheme and the 'nntp'
> scheme were not/should not be identical.

They were not originally identical, but I don't see any particular reason
why they can't be.

> Things wrong with that:

> 1. No syntax for <message> is given
> 2. I suspect that the syntax for <messageno> should have been just
> 1*DIGIT, since it is evidently to be used in the same way that <range> is
> used in our NNTP draft.
> 3. I suspect that the syntax given for <messageno> was actually intended
> to be the syntax for <message>. However, if that was intended to represent
> a syntax for message-id, then it differs from the syntax for message-id
> given in RFC 2822 and in RFC 1036 and in Usefor, which does not seem
> particularly useful.

Yeah, these are all bugs in the ABNF that I think you should report to the
author.  These all strike me as simple cases of something being written
other than what the person intended.

> 4. If the refbygroup form is used, then the news-server MUST be present.

Is this something that you're claiming (in which case, you're wrong), or
is this something that the draft is claiming (in which case that portion
wasn't included in your message)?

> 5. I am not clear as to the present usage of "nntp" as a scheme name, but
> for sure I have never encountered a URL of the form
> <news://news.foo.example/comp.foo/1234-1238> (it is certainly not
> envisaged by RFC 1738).

What's wrong with it other than it not currently being implemented by much
software?  Seems useful in some situations to me, and only moderately hard
to implement.

You seemed to think that I should take some action about this, and I'm not
understanding why you believe that's the case.  The syntax (with the
obvious corrections to what the person was intending to write) seems
reasonable to me; I don't see any particular need to preserve the
distinction between news: and nntp: URLs.  You can either include a server
or not, and that seems sensible.  The only significant difference
historically between the news: and the nntp: URLs was whether you included
the server name.

I mean, I'll probably review the draft at some point just for my own
personal edification, but I don't see anything obviously wrong with what
you quoted other than the obvious ABNF issues.

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