From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Fri Jun 01 2001 - 06:10:26 CDT
In <03973c14034a8e555ae19ed48572b2cf@peteralf.sewer.output> Peter Alfredsen <peteralf@fabel.dk> writes:
>This is a "build it and they will come" argument. We can not suddenly
>make the Archive header a technical requirement, and we can certainly
>not try to say that we are defining Best Practice, when in fact what we
>are doing, is inventing X-No-Archive with a much stronger wording, than
>X-No-Archive has ever had.
X-No-Archive has never had any wording. That is a lack which we are now
trying to rectify.
>X-No-Archive was purely meant for the Deja Archive. Not for all the
>other archives of usenet that exist. The only two cases that I have seen
>an implementation of the X-No-Archive header is at Deja.com and
>remarq.com. Please point me to other places where this header has
>actually been implemented.
Nor was X-No-Archive purely meant for the Deja Archive. That was just a
particularly prominent archive that set the process in motion, but I am sure
the people who started to use that header fully intended it to apply to
all other archives of a similar nature that might appear in the future. So
it was natural for remarq.com, and now Google, to follow suit. That is how
current-practice becomes established on Usenet. It starts in a small way,
and then grows to the extent that it becomes unstoppable. I think it is
now clear that all future archives will be "expected" to toe the line
(and I think that includes your small attempts every bit as much as the
big players).
>It is not up to us to define the Archive header with wording any
>stronger than that of currently existing practice, and it is certainly
>not up to us to use imperatives from 2119 stronger than MAY, as no
>interoperability problems have been pointed out yet. I can accept the
>Archive header if it is used with MAY or Ought. Other wordings will be
>plain wrong.
If a header fails to achieve what its users expect and intend it to
achieve, then that is "harm". And this whole RFC 2119 argument is being
grossly overplayed. Look at RFC 2822, which has been accetped by IETF, and
identify the interoperability problems or the harm that will arise in the
case of each of their MUSTs or SHOULDs. You will find that we are being
excessively timid compared with what they have got away with.
>The problem you are missing here, is that normal servers will fall under
>the definitions of an "archiving agent" that has been brought up so far.
And quite rightly so, if what they are doing amounts to "archiving".
-- 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. PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5