[NNTP] 32 bit article counters

[Steve Walker]

Hello Everyone,

I would like to re-open the discussion on new 32bit article 
number limit added to proposed RFC977 replacement.  As most 
people know, RFC977 wisely left the article numbers as text, 
limited by line length limits.  Good software will deal with long 
article numbers since they are text even if their binary 
conversion exceeds 32bits.  It's just a matter of time before 
these counters exceed 32bits.  The proposed protocol does not 
specify what should happen when this even happens.  Should the 
counters wrap around or does Usenet just finally die?  The 
proposed protocol has forbid wrapping by placing the restrictions 
that the high counter can not be less than low counter.

Personally I use software that serializes all articles into a 
"master" type newsgroup and I use the same article number for all 
cross posts.  Our article counters will exceed the 32bit number 
much sooner than other servers, but all servers will eventually 
reach this new limit.  I will reach the 32bit article number 
limit within 2 years. (2^32 - 6 million articles per day = ~2 
years).  Other servers will reach the limit in less than 8 years 
(from inital setup).

For example, if you consider a group the receives 500K articles 
per day and factor in 2X growth every 2 years to get the 
following.  Note this is if you setup the server/counters today. 
  Most servers have been running for years.

Year	Day		Year		Total
1	500000		182500000	182500000
3	1000000		365000000	547500000
5	2000000		730000000	1277500000
7	4000000		1460000000	2737500000
9	8000000		2920000000	5657500000
11	16000000	5840000000	11497500000

Since RFC977 did not place any limits and software is in use that 
relies on this fact I think this new proposal is actually moving 
us backwards.  I propose that the limits either be removed 
entirely or they be specified as a more reasonable 64 bit counter.

Regards,
Steve Walker
NNTPServer.com