From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Oct 09 2002 - 06:26:48 CDT
In <3DA2A8BF.2010801@meowing.net> greg andruk <gja@meowing.net> writes:
>> The worst that will happen to an unupgraded server (or
>> rather its injection agent) is that moderator mail sent to the address
>> constructed by the present algorithm will fail through containing
>> "illegal" characters, or will bounce from the moderators.isc.org site.
>In other words, it will fail to interoperate.
Yes, when you introduce a brand new feature into a protocol, you do not
expect it to interoperate with the existing base.
In the case of I18N names, the first priority is that they transport over
the existing network. That is a global problem or, as it turns out, a
non-problem.
The rest of the problems are local ones, affecting only people who
actually want the benefit of the new functionality.
Clearly, the first local problem is that you need an upgraded user agent,
unless you are content to put up with some unreadable headers whenever you
see an article crossposted to one of the new groups. For example, I
subscribe to dk.test.utf8-זרו, but I have not bothered to upgrade my
newsreader, and it works well enough. If ever I wanted to be a serious
subscriber to such groups, I would do something about it.
The next local problem arises if there are moderated I18N groups and you
want to post to one of them. So you have to persuade your injector site to
upgrade, or edit the mailpaths file, or whatever. But that is still a
local problem - it is independent of the rest of Usenet. And if you local
injector is uncooperative, there are things you can do.
The matter of newgroup control messages is also a local problem. A server
that wants to receive the new groups will have to take some action
(updated scripts, or temporary hacks). If it doesn't want them, nothing
changes.
But all these local problems, apart from the user agent, are simple to
accomodate. The scripts are easily rewritten, either by the implementors
of the server software, or on an ad hoc basis by the local admin. There
may well be some local admins who lack the necessary skills, but that
should not be true for servers providing asrvice to the general public,
which is what most people use (yes, the admins of those public servers are
often incompetent, but their screwups are usually on a much grander scale
that we are talking about now :-( ).
-- 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