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

[Russ Allbery]

Charles Lindsey <chl at clerew.man.ac.uk> writes:
> Russ Allbery <rra at stanford.edu> writes:

>>> 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)?

> It is something I am claiming. Article numbers within a group are unique
> to a server, but bear no resemblance to the article numbers for the same
> article on a different server.

The refbygroup form doesn't require an article number.

I agree that there should be a note saying that the form with article
numbers only makes sense when applied to a particular news server.  Or if
he wants to put that into the ABNF, that's fine too.

> Yes, I see now that RFC 1738 did define both forms, one for the 'news'
> scheme and the other for the 'nntp' scheme. I can see some sense in
> combining them, but it is a decision that should be taken by the news
> community after proper consideration.

This portion of the news community is perfectly happy with letting the URL
community take the lead, although I do appreciate you mentioning the draft
here.

> I think this WG is the appropriate place to discuss this (as opposed to
> Usefor, which is bogged down in other things).

I don't.  We can talk about it on the side while other things are on hold,
but if this turns into a large discussion, I think it should be taken
elsewhere since it's not within our charter.

The mandate of this working group is specific and narrow:  we are working
on getting the next revision of the NNTP standard out.  We are *not*
chartered to review every I-D that touches on NNTP that comes out of the
IETF, nor do I want the group to turn into that at this late date.

If we need a working group to do that, we should look at that after we
publish and when we start rechartering.

If this draft is really in need of a mailing list where it can be
discussed, I can create a separate, hopefully short-lived, list for that
purpose.

> I would think the proper procedure would be for us to agree on a text to
> feed into Paul's draft, or to invite Paul to come and discuss it
> here.

I don't agree.  I think that you should mention your concerns to Paul, or
I can do that if you really don't want to for some reason, and then we can
see where things go from there.

I do think that he should probably post a copy to news.software.nntp,
though, where he'll find a lot more people to comment than he would here
at present.

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