From: Brad Templeton (brad@clari.net)
Date: Wed Sep 17 1997 - 12:40:30 CDT
On Sep 17, 1997 at 02:43:23PM +0100, Clive D.W. Feather wrote:
> I disagree. Distributions broke for the following reasons:
There are various other reasons, yes.
>
> (c) Distribution was designed as being orthogonal to newsgroup, when it
> isn't. There are very few groups where it makes sense to limit the
Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
> (d) Distribution assumed that network topology mapped to physical
> geography. It doesn't.
THe old one did, that's why I'm proposing a fix.
>
> Why not ? If a peer has sent it to our news system, we want to make it
> available to our customers, some of whom are peers. So we're going to
> ignore the distribution anyway. If you wanted to police that rule, I'd
> arrange that appearance of an unknown token in a Distribution: header
> caused that token to be added to the list.
If you really want them all, you can take them all. THe problem is
that today, even if you don't want them all, you get them all.
>
> > Relay/Storage Agents MUST not execute control messages with a
> > distribution of other than one valid for the site.
>
> So if an article leaks to me, I MUST NOT obey a valid cancel for it ?
Correct. Not you, but your software, as configured by you. If you
tell your software, "I don't want the 'germany' distribution" then it
should hide articles in that distribution and not execute control
messages in that distribution.
THe example that brought all this up is a message is found to violate
german law. A cancel needs to be issued on it -- in germany only.
If you have german readers, you may wish to execute it, but otherwise
you don't. If you want to execute all cancels, you may of course, this
gives you the option not to.
>
> > They SHOULD NOT
> > store articles whose distribution header does not include one
> > valid for the site.
>
> See above.
This is not a restriction on the site owner, it's telling the software
to obey the site owner's instructions about what distributions are wanted.