From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Aug 22 2001 - 04:26:46 CDT
The IETF Usenet Format working group (grandson of 1036) has been
considering a 'mvgroup' control message. Indeed, the present draft
<http://www.landfield.com/usefor/drafts/draft-ietf-usefor-article-05.txt>
contains a detailed proposal. However, some on the working group
are unhappy about leaving it in the draft on account of possible
difficulties of implementation.
I am writing to you people as you are all believed to be responsible for
the implementation of Netnews servers, and some members of the group
have asked to hear the opinion of some more actual implementors before
proceeding further.
The proposal as it stands would be something like:
1. 'mvgroup' means do a newgroup plus a rmgroup.
2. The actual rmgroup part SHOULD be deferred for a reasonable period
(between 1 to 30 days, though I would not want to specify precise figures)
to allow articles in transit and from injectors not yet upgraded to
continue to arrive.
3. Perhaps local posting to oldgroup to be stopped immediately ('n' in
active file in some implementations). That might be at the MAY/Ought/NOTE
level.
4. Perhaps retention of articles after the (deferred) rmgroup until they
expire ('x' in active file). That is certainly NOTE level I think, though
it is common current practice.
5. New articles arriving for oldgroup (and even existing articles in
oldgroup) MAY be placed in (or transferred to) newgroup ('=newgroup' in
active file).
6. In a NOTE, explanation that the MAY is because existing systems are
unlikely to offer this feature (at least for some time), but with some
encouragement to move towards that goal (perhaps even threaten MAY->SHOULD
in a future standard). Also a warning that such merging may never be
possible if both groups exist already and both contain articles.
7. In a NOTE, warning that the effect of 5 could be that the newsgroups
listed in the Xref header might include oldgroup or newgroup or both.
Item #5 is the problem. In the present draft, that MAY is a SHOULD,
but INN would have some difficulty in adapting the '=newgroup' flag in
its active file to do the job because of its somewhat bizarre internal
stroage structure (to be fixed someday, perhaps). OTOH, I did an
experimental implementation using CNews without undue difficulty (but
CNews is hardly a major player nowadays).
The argument for including 'mvgroup' in the present draft, even with
that "MAY" in it, is that it will at least give notice that 'mvgroup'
is definitely going to happen, which will encourage hierarchy admins to
start using it. The argument against is that it would be better left as
an "experimental protocol" until we see whether it catches on or not.
Hence the reason why we are seeking the views of other implementors
(both as to the viability of what is proposed, and also the balance to
be struck between its usefulness as against possible implementation
difficulties). I hope you people will take the time to consider this and
let us have your views. Reply-To has been set to the Working Group, and
of course you are all welcome to join in on the discussion there (see
<http://www.landfield.com/usefor> details and archives of the mailing
list).
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
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