[NNTP] LIST EXTENSIONS and an NNTPv2 capability

[Ken Murchison]

Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
> I wrote:
> 
>>I should have realized that what I was proposing was too big a chunk for
>>people to swallow in one go. Let me try again, explaining what I am
>>thinking.

I'm curious as to what makes NNTP so different from IMAP/POP/SMTP that 
it requires an extension discovery mechanism that is orders of magnitude 
more complex.  These other protocols have been able to "survive" with a 
mechanism just as simple as the existing LIST EXTENSIONS + NNTPv2 
proposal.  In fact, IMAP is far more complex than NNTP and is able to 
get by with a very simple CAPABILITY command.

My fear is that we are trying to over engineer this to the point of 
solving a non-existent problem.  I'm also afraid that this level of 
complexity will lead to implementation delays or no implementations at all.

This is another case where we need client vendors to determine what is 
necessary.  The only client feedback that I have seen is from Mark 
Crispin, whose c-client library is used as the core of Pine (and other 
packages like PHP) and supports all 4 protocols discussed above.  His 
quote to me (he's not on the mailing list so he may or may not have 
posts sitting in the moderator queue) regarding the STATUS proposal was 
"It is unnecessary and needlessly complex.  It should not happen."

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