[NNTP] Consensus?

[Steve Walker]

Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
> I don't accept that just telling people to use 2^64-1 is a solution.
> Existing clients *ARE NOT* going to be updated "just like that", and any
> proper solution needs to work reasonably well with such clients.

Could you explain how it would cause any existing client or 
server to break that wasn't already going to break at the same 
point in time?  My point, as well as several others, is that a 32 
bit client and a 64 bit server will quit working at the exact 
same time that the 32 bit server overflows.  If we advocate using 
64 bit numbers then at least some clients will work when the time 
comes.  The current wording causes all clients to fail.

> This is not "a minor change" and I don't believe we can just sneak it into
> the document without wider review.

It wasn't a minor change to add the 32 bit wording either, yet it 
was added.  If you really want to leave the issue open, the new 
32 bit limit need to be removed from the proposed RFC977 
replacement.  By asking people to address this issue in a future 
RFC you are effectively telling software developers to use no 
specified limit (RFC977), then use a 32 bit limit (V2), then use 
xyz limit (V3).  It should be either fixed correctly or not 
changed.  You seem to be ignoring the fact that there are popular 
64 bit clients in use today.  The new wording causes existing 
software to become non-compliant.

Steve.