[NNTP] [2501] Reader commands in transit servers and vice-versa

[Charles Lindsey]

In <20041203140612.GF21270 at finch-staff-1.thus.net> "Clive D.W. Feather" <clive at demon.net> writes:

>> A new point (which I hope I can express clearly): "end-user" systems (as
>> opposed to transit servers run by ISPs) usually use POST, but sometimes
>> use IHAVE...  making servers fully implement everything in order to
>> accommodate legacy users of IHAVE doesn't seem likely -- so I expect one
>> will see "reader only" systems with extensions to cope with IHAVE.

>At present IHAVE is the *only* transit command, so that would actually be a
>general-purpose server.

Not necessarily, because the semantics of IHAVE is typically different in
reader mode than when in transit mode. Not different from a pure NNTP POV,
but different in what happens behinds the scenes, e.g. it might behave
more like an injecting agent, performing extra checks, inserting
NNTP-Posting-Host (or Injection-Info) etc. For example, uni-berlin behaves
like that.

>In case we ever have more transit commands in the core specification, do we
>want a separate capability for IHAVE? Or do we see this (IHAVE but not
>other transit commands) as an unlikely enough case to ignore?

Yes, when IHAVE is available in reader mode, I would like to see a
capability to tell me so.

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