[NNTP] Re: New NNTP drafts approaching IETF Last Call

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Mark Crispin said:
>> Firstly, the NNTP specification is written to pass around very generic
>> "articles"
> You are mixing message contents with responses, and saying "we can't fix 
> responses because responses are used to contain message contents."
> 
> The entire problem is that you're not separating the two.

No I'm not (mixing), not it isn't (the entire problem) and yes I am
(separating).

* A response consists of an initial line followed by subsequent lines.
* The initial line consists of a 3-digit code, zero or more arguments
  surrounded by single spaces, and a trailing comment.
  - the 3-digit code is ASCII
  - the arguments are ASCII printable
  - the spaces are ASCII
  - the comment is UTF-8.
* The subsequent lines are specific to commands. There are 16 such commands
  in the core protocol.

Of the 16 commands, these 9 already meet the requirements:

    CAPABILITIES       - UTF-8
    LIST ACTIVE        - UTF-8
    LIST ACTIVE.TIMES  - UTF-8
    LIST DISTRIB.PATS  - UTF-8
    LIST HEADERS       - ASCII
    LIST OVERVIEW.FMT  - ASCII
    LISTGROUP          - ASCII
    NEWGROUPS          - UTF-8
    NEWNEWS            - ASCII

Next, ARTICLE, BODY, and HEAD return articles or parts of them. An article
is specified - as I said in another message, to consist of headers and an
unstructured body. The header names are ASCII and the header values are:
    MUST accept any encoding
    SHOULD only generate UTF-8
The responses from HDR and OVER are derived from header contents and carry
the same requirement. This requirement matches both current practice and
the principle that this is Usefor territory, not ours.

Next there's LIST NEWGROUPS. The newsgroup names are UTF-8 but the
descriptive text is again "MUST accept any, SHOULD generate UTF-8". This is
because this text is generated by national or regional authorities and we
have no practical power to order them to do anything; we can only
encourage. While a hierarchy works in KOI-8, they're hardly likely to want
this text to be UTF-8.

Finally there is HELP. This is unstructured text designed to match
purely local needs. Currently it's like an article body - any octets
allowed except NUL, CR, and LF not in CRLF pairs. It normally gets dumped
from a file on the server or some similar approach. Any change in
requirements is going to be widely ignored.

So what am I mixing or failing to separate?

-- 
Clive D.W. Feather  | Work:  <clive at demon.net>   | Tel:    +44 20 8495 6138
Internet Expert     | Home:  <clive at davros.org>  | Fax:    +44 870 051 9937
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