[NNTP] Optional LIST commands

[Russ Allbery]

Clive D W Feather <clive at demon.net> writes:

> Taking this and Ken's message, here's what I'll do if nobody screams:

> * Make LIST NEWSGROUPS mandatory.
> * Create a new standard extension called LIST.
> * All commands in this extension have two-part keywords; the only
>   restriction is that they can't be the same as the mandatory LIST
>   commands, obviously.
> * An implementation can support any number of such keywords but:
>   - they are only for returning information;
>   - no LIST command can change the server state;
>   - they all use the same, specified, set of response codes.
> * LIST EXTENSIONS lists all of the supported keywords.
> * We document meanings for ACTIVE.TIMES and DISTRIB.PATS.

I'm inclined to say that this sounds like the right thing to do.  It's a
little weird, but then the LIST command in general is rather weird.  The
only thing that worries me is that I wonder if we need an IANA registry or
something for different LIST types, and if so that looks like a very odd
thing to ask them to maintain.

The alternative, I suppose, is to define each additional list command as a
separate extension and advertise it as such (LIST-ACTIVE.TIMES,
LIST-DISTRIB.PATS, etc.).  That's a little more consistent, but feels even
uglier and too verbose to me.

I'm not really convinced one way or the other, though.

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