[NNTP] CAPABILITIES problem!

[Scott Hollenbeck]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Russ Allbery [mailto:rra at stanford.edu] 
> Sent: Monday, August 01, 2005 12:55 PM
> To: ietf-nntp at lists.eyrie.org
> Subject: Re: [NNTP] CAPABILITIES problem!
> 
> Clive D W Feather <clive at demon.net> writes:
> 
> > I can't believe we all missed this. The IANA registry 
> people have just
> > pointed it out to me.
> 
> > In 3.3.1 we define a capability label as being a keyword.
> > In 2 we state that a keyword MUST be at least 3 characters 
> and MUST NOT
> >   exceed 12 characters.
> > [Both these are repeated in the formal syntax.]
> > In 3.3.2 we specify the capability label IMPLEMENTATION.
> 
> > Which is 14 characters long.
> 
> > Possible solutions:
> > (1) Relax the 12 character limit to something longer (where 
> did it come
> > from anyway?).
> > (2) Relax the requirement for the label to be a keyword.
> > (3) Change the keyword to something shorter, like SERVER_INFO.
> 
> I think the easiest thing to do at this point is just change 
> it, since I
> don't think anyone has started implementing CAPABILITIES yet. 
>  Since the
> choice of keywords is fairly arbitrary, whereas lengths might 
> (probably
> won't, but might) have subtle consequences, changing the 
> keyword at this
> stage seems like the lowest impact change.
> 
> Ned, Scott, is this something that we can take care of in 
> author's 48, or
> do we need to do something more formal?

Given that this is something more than an editorial change, it needs to be
made with some notice.  Let's do this:

Russ, please figure out what the best change is by floating and confirming a
proposal on the WG mailing list.  Once we know what to do, please reply to
Michelle's request for info to tell her what IANA should do.  Then make the
document change in auth48.

Sound reasonable?

-Scott-