[NNTP] draft-ietf-nntpext-streaming-02

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Andrew - Supernews said:
> If no-one can actually come up with a realistic case for why a server
> should ever need to return a defer in response to a TAKETHIS article
> body, then I'd suggest dropping it out of the draft entirely.

The realistic case is very simple: if the server can't accept the article
now but has no objection to the article itself, then it needs some way to
say so. There are only three ways to do this:

(1) Declare that you can never defer an article: if sending it goes wrong
for any reason, that article can NEVER EVER FOR ETERNITY be accepted.

(2) Give a bogus response like 400 plus dropping the connection, at which
point the client doesn't know what is wrong and will retry the same
action.

(3) A defer code.

This is so obviously superior that RFC 977 did it and SMTP does it.

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather  | Work:  <clive at demon.net>   | Tel:    +44 20 8495 6138
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