Re: ietf-nntp Initial draft FINALLY available

[Stan Barber <[e-mail]>]

> At 11:37 PM 10/1/96 CDT, Stan Barber wrote:
> 
> >> >9.1 AUTHINFO
> >> 
> >> The AUTHINFO SIMPLE and AUTHINFO GENERIC commands are listed, but not the
> >> plain (and widely used) AUTHINFO USER|PASS command.  Is this intentional?
> >
> >
> >Yes.
> 
> Why?  Isn't this what most software is using today?

There is no need for both AUTHINFO (original) and AUTHINFO SIMPLE since they
are so similar. We don't need both, so I chose one. If folks think that it
should be the other one, I don't have a problem with that.
> 
> >> Hmmmm.  A couple of questions.  First, why is this command renamed from 
> >> XOVER? 
> >X commands are not part of the spec. 
> 
> Can we consider explicitly supporting some subset of the X commands
> in the spec?  Is the problem with including them in this spec and
> prohibiting their use as local extensions an aesthetic one, or is
> there some more concrete reason to require everyone to make this
> change? 

We should not spec an X command in this specification. Everyone can
implement the X commands they like in implementation, but to include them
in the spec is not consistent with the purpose of having X commands.
X commands exist so that implementations can have non-standard extensions.
Putting them in the spec makes them part of the standard.

My intent with the name change was to initialize the extensions table
with some extensions to prime the extensions mechanism. That is why I 
changed the names, but implementors can choose to implement XPAT, XOVER
and so on if they want. Under those names, they are, by definition,
NOT standard extensions.

> 
> >XHDR is just a subset of XPAT. There is no need for both.
> 
> Ok.
> 
> >I was thinking that BATCH could be another reference added after the spec
> >using the new extension mechanism. 
> 
> Sounds fine.
> 


-- 
Stan   | Academ Consulting Services        |internet: [e-mail]
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Barber | URL- http://www.academ.com/academ |Opinions expressed are only mine.