[NNTP] Consensus?

[Ken Murchison]

Russ Allbery wrote:

  > (2) I think we've reached a solid consensus on removing the limit.  If
> anyone disagrees, please speak up now.  (Note that even with consensus, my
> understanding of the process is that we don't publish a new draft.
> Instead, when the RFC Editor contacts Clive for author's 48 hours, he
> would tell them to make the change at that time.)

Agreed.


> For (1), the discussion has been wide-ranging enough that I'm not sure on
> (a).  I know some folks here would like the limit removed entirely, but I
> don't have a good feeling on what people think about 2^32-1 versus 2^31-1
> assuming that we keep a limit.  More discussion would be valuable there, I
> believe.
> 
> For (b), had you or someone else already posted a specific wording
> suggestion?  (I've been swamped this past week and fairly busy before
> that, so may have missed it.)  Would this change include warning people to
> use longer data types as well?

I proposed wording that made support for 2^32-1 a MUST, and support for 
2^64-1 a SHOULD.

I'm still not sure what the problem is with this suggestion.  We know we 
have at least a couple of years to get deployment before groups start 
hitting the 2^32-1 limit.  When servers finally start spitting out 
article numbers > 2^32, client implementors will have had plenty of time 
to get ready.  Those that haven't will get plenty of complaints from 
users that they can't read their favorite groups and will either be 
forced into fixing their product, or the product will die.

-- 
Kenneth Murchison     Oceana Matrix Ltd.
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