[NNTP] LIST EXTENSIONS (again)

[Russ Allbery]

Mark Crispin <MRC at CAC.Washington.EDU> writes:
> On Fri, 5 Nov 2004, Russ Allbery wrote:

>> Every server that actually requires MODE READER will be broken by that
>> order.  Fixing the servers that require that order is equivalent to
>> eliminating MODE READER entirely.

> Only those servers which *also* have STARTTLS and/or AUTHINFO.

> How many such servers are there in the wild?  I suspect that this is a
> very small number.

The point is more that there isn't any way to fix this *in software* to
make your order work other than eliminating the MODE READER command
altogether.  There is nothing that I can do to INN to make the current
Pine work properly for servers that require MODE READER; all I could do is
make it impossible to install INN in a currently supported configuration.

I'm not saying this is impossible; I'm just saying that if we're going to
do this, we should simply eliminate MODE READER entirely.  It makes no
sense to continue to describe it but allow it to be sent after
authentication.

> It may be possible to help inn by making some simplifying
> assumptions. For example, if STARTTLS and AUTHINFO are assumed to be
> done only by readers, then these commands can do an implicit MODE READER
> and then make the subsequent MODE READER be a no-op.

AUTHINFO, unfortunately, is not only used by readers.

> Of course, I'm happy with the notion of eliminating MODE READER entirely
> (which I agree is what this all implies), so my position has to be
> considered with that in mind... :-)

Right.  :)

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