[NNTP] Article number wording

[Thomas Gschwind]

Hi all!

On Fri, Jul 29, 2005 at 11:00:16AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Steve Walker <nntp at nntpserver.com> writes:
> > The problem is that the current draft has addressed the issue.  It says
> > 32 bit numbers and no roll over.  If you wish to leave it open as 977
> > did, you need to remove the current text on the matter.
> 
> It's not acceptable to leave it unspecified.  RFC 977 was deficient in
> this regard.  Whatever we do, we have to be clear and specific about it;
> that's the whole point of a standard.

I perfectly agree that this should be specified.  At the same time,
since we are aware of the fact that article numbers will eventually
overflow, I think a solution SHOULD be pointed out in the RFC.
Otherwise the RFC renders itself obsolete before we have a better
solution and everybody will come up with a different solution.  This I
would consider a bad thing.

I think the best solution would be to recommend news servers
implementors to limit their article numbers to unsigned 32-bit numbers
for the next 2(?) years and at the same time, we should recommend news
client implementors to update their clients to handle unsigned 64-bit
article numbers.  This gives them 2 years time which to update their
clients which should be sufficient.

Specifying a wrap-around strategy similar to the one that we have
(almost) worked out already, would be another/additional option.
However, I agree that at this time adding the wrap-around strategy might
be too big a change.

I don't think using an extension will provide an adequate solution since
again old clients would be blocked from reading news unless they
implement the extension (which they don't) or unless the server provides
two different numberings (in which case the extension is obviously
unnecessary).  Please correct me, if I am wrong.

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Gschwind                      Email: thomasg at ieee.org
IBM Zurich Research Lab
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CH-8803 Rueschlikon, Switzerland     Fax: +41-1-724-8953