From: John Stanley (stanley@peak.org)
Date: Wed Feb 27 2002 - 12:52:16 CST
Russ is arguing that this standard must allow for applications like a
distriibuted bug tracking system where messages need to have updated
status information inserted along the way. If this standard prohibits
certain things, he argues, people won't be able to use the news system as
whatever else it is they want it to be.
Well, that's fine by me. This is a standard for news. It is not a standard
for a bug tracking system, nor an electronic timecard system, nor an IRC
client, nor a web server, nor a ten-speed bicycle, nor any other damn
thing you can think of. We need to focus on the things that need to be
done, and what shouldn't be done, to process and transport news.
Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> writes:
>Yeah, it was a poorly chosen example. Sorry. A better example would be
>an injector that automatically added a tracking number to the subject
>line, perhaps because it's also gating messages into mail and can't assume
>that mail clients will preserve References information.
Another "not a news" application that we are supposed to consider when
designing a news standard. Mail is mail. This is news. In this standard,
we ASSUME that References information is maintained because we have made
it mandatory. To say that we should assume that it won't be and thus we
cannot put a limitation on something else is schizophrenic.
To pour the gasoline on the already shredded and burning straw man Russ
put up, you can't assume that a "tracking number" in the subject will be
preserved, either. Using the inability to preserve References as an excuse
for not prohibiting modification of the Subject (or any header) is
specious.
Now, if the GATEWAY wants to mangle the Subject when it gates to mail, and
the GATEWAY wants to keep a database of mangled subject/news message id
pairs, that's outside the scope of this standard, where it should be. And
if some "entity" posing as a news client wants to mangle the body of an
article so that it functions as a bug tracking system while still using
the news standard for message format and transmission, that's also outside
the scope of this standard, where it should be. More power to them.
But to say that an injector should be allowed to mangle Subjects because
some gateway into mail might use that to keep track of messages is, well,
silly at best.