[NNTP] Changes from RFC 977 / RFC 2980

[Ken Murchison]

Since I suggested that we add an appendix that lists the changes that 
we're making to RFC 977 and RFC 2980, I thought I'd take a first stab at 
it.  Here's what I came up with, which may not be an exhaustive list.


Changes from RFC 977:

-  SLAVE command deprecated

-  all articles MUST have a message-id (no "<0>" placeholder allowed in
    responses)

-  UTF-8 character set used for commands and responses [section 3.1]

-  x8x response codes are reserved for authentication and privacy
    extensions (formerly used for non-standard/private extensions)
    [section 3.2]

-  x9x response codes are reserved for non-standard/private extensions
    (formerly used for debugging output) [section 3.2]

-  new 401, 403, 480, 483, and 504 generic response codes
    [section 3.2.1]

-  redefined 502 and 503 response codes [section 3.2.1]

-  servers MUST support pipelining of commands (where possible)
    [section 3.5]

-  wildmat format standarized [section 4]

-  new CAPABILITIES command [section 5.2]

-  new MODE READER command [section 5.3]

-  group argument to the GROUP command is now optional
    [section 6.1.1]

-  new LISTGROUP command [section 6.1.2]

-  new DATE command [section 7.1]

-  4 digit years allowed for NEWGROUPS and NEWNEWS commands
    [sections 7.3 and 7.4]

-  new ACTIVE, ACTIVE.TIMES, DISTRIB.PATS, and NEWGROUPS variants of
    LIST command [sections 7.6.3 - 7.6.6]

-  new "m" status flag for LIST / LIST ACTIVE response [section 7.6.3]

-  new OVER and LIST OVERVIEW.FMT commands [sections 8.3 and 8.4]

-  new HDR and LIST HEADERS commands [sections 8.5 and 8.6]



Changes from RFC 2980:

-  LISTGROUP command can accept an optional range argument,
    and the 211 initial response has the same format as the
    GROUP 211 response [section 6.1.2]

-  :bytes and :lines metadata items deprecate Bytes and Lines
    (pseudo)headers [sections 8.1.1 and 8.1.2]

-  XOVER command formalized as OVER command [section 8.3]

-  OVER command can accept a message-id argument [section 8.3]

-  XHDR command formalized as HDR command [section 8.5]

-- 
Kenneth Murchison     Oceana Matrix Ltd.
Software Engineer     21 Princeton Place
716-662-8973 x26      Orchard Park, NY 14127
--PGP Public Key--    http://www.oceana.com/~ken/ksm.pgp