[NNTP] Optional LIST commands

[Ken Murchison]

Russ Allbery wrote:

> Clive D W Feather <clive at demon.net> writes:
> 
>>Ken Murchison said:
> 
> 
>>>I like the idea of advertising whether MODE READER is required and
>>>which optional LIST commands are supported, but I don't see where our
>>>new token needs to be used as part of this.
> 
> 
>>These are features of the core protocol, not extensions. Therefore, in
>>my opinion, they belong with the support information for the core
>>extension.  Note how we have "OVER MSGID" rather than separate "OVER"
>>and "OVER-MSGID" capabilities.
> 
> 
> So, here's a question.  Why *aren't* they extensions?  If it's just
> because they were in RFC 977, I don't think that's a very good reason;

Actually, to strengthen the argument, they weren't in RFC 977, they are 
only documented in RFC 2980, which IMHO definitely puts them in the 
extension category.


> Here's a proposal:  Why don't we make LIST NEWSGROUPS mandatory (pretty
> much everyone implements it, even if they don't have any data to return,
> and the case of not having any data to return is already supported in the
> description of the command), and make LIST ACTIVE.TIMES, LIST
> DISTRIB.PATS, and LIST DISTRIBUTIONS separate extensions?

Works for me.  I'd [re]suggest a "LIST" extension with one or more 
arguments, e.g.:

[C] LIST EXTENSIONS
[S] LIST ACTIVE.TIMES DISTRIBUTIONS
[S] .

Of course, if we don't allow '.' in arguments, we could use '-' instead.

-- 
Kenneth Murchison     Oceana Matrix Ltd.
Software Engineer     21 Princeton Place
716-662-8973 x26      Orchard Park, NY 14127
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