Subject: Possible items for AUTH48

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 17:13:10 GMT

I have now done a careful read through of USEPRO draft-14, and as fas as
the text goes, it seems in pretty good shape (which is not to say that I
agree with everything it says, since it is well known that I have serious
disagreements on two issues).

So here are the niggles that I have found, and that may be worth fixing:

My name, as a joint author, is given as "C. Lindsey". Since I have a
perfectly good middle initial, I would prefer "C. H. Lindsey".

In section 3.5 (Duties of an injecting agent), Step 2, it states:

   "It MUST reject any proto-article ... that has a Path header field
   containing the "POSTED" <diag-keyword>;..."

That is inconsistent with the recently altered section 3.4.1
(Proto-articles) which now states only that

   "the Path header field SHOULD NOT contain a "POSTED" <diag-keyword>;"

Russ pointed out this anomaly a couple of months back, but since both the
Chair and the Area Director flatly refused any further discussion of the
issue, I am not holding my breath for it to be fixed. Neverteless, it
remains an anomaly.

In section 5.4 (The Supersedes Header Field), it is not immediately clear
whether an Approved header is needed, as with Group control messages.
Diligent examination reveals that it is NOT required (and that is
correct). But it might be kinder to add:

   NOTE: It is not required (except in moderated groups) for a Supersedes
   header field to be accompanied by an Approved header field.

In Appendix A (Changes to the Existing Protocols), there should be a
mention of the recently introduce Original-Sender header field.

I have carefully noted all the places where [RFC2822] is mentioned, and it
appears that they would all be equally applicable to RFC5822, which is on
track to become a Draft Standard.

As regards the USEFOR draft, which will also be up for AUTH 48 at the same
time, it would again be possible to update it to RFC5822 under the rules
governing AUTH48. This _would_ involve a change of text by way of a
considerable simplification off the complex (and now unnecessary) syntax
of <msg-id>. There is now only one very minor difference betwee USEFOR and
RFC5822 as regards the syntax of the Message-ID header field, namely that
it is forbidden to contain and '>' (or SP IIRC). That small difference
would be easy to describe - it is intended to permit quick and dirty
parsers of Message-ID to stop reading a message identifier as soon as they
encounter either a '>' or a SP. In practical terms neither of those
currently ever occurs in the middle of a <msg-id> in either News or Email,
so there are no real-world implications of tidying up the syntax of USEFOR
that way.

I would be happy to go through the whole of USEFOR and to docement exactly
that changes would be needed to enable it to reference RFC5822 in place of
RFC 2822. There is no other difference that springs immediately to mind
other than the one mentioned, but obviously it would need to be checked
carefully.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131            Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: [email-masked]      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

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From: Julien ÉLIE <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 16:05:04 +0200

Hi Charles,

>   "the Path header field SHOULD NOT contain a "POSTED" <diag-keyword>;"

Why not say in 3.5 that it MAY reject such an article (instead of MUST)?
It would be coherent with

    "It MAY reject any proto-article that contains trace header fields"

>   header field to be accompanied by an Approved header field.

I reckon it would be useful to add your suggested note.

> track to become a Draft Standard.

Isn't it RFC 5322?
RFC 5822 seems to be draft-hoffman-dac-vbr-04 and is not the same thing.

> time

When is AUTH 48?
Is there still some work on USEAGE?  Why isn't it in the same state as USEFOR
and USEPRO?  Was it abandoned ?

-- 
Julien ÉLIE

« Quand je raconterai mon odyssée, personne ne me croira ! » (Astérix)

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From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 14:48:08 GMT

>and USEPRO?  Was it abandoned ?

The existing USEAGE draft, which contains quite a bit of text discussed by
the group, and also results of a short period of discussion some years
back, is now obviously badly out of date. The plan we are currently
supposed to be working to is to get the various drafts out one at a time.
So USEFOR and USEPRO are now just about done. So, in theory, we could now
go ahead with USEAGE (which would not need any rechartering). But whether
that will actually happen is entirely another matter :-( .

One of the things I am thinking of over the next few weeks is to dig out
that USEAGE draft, and update it to at least be consistent with the
current USEFOR and USEPRO. Then we would be in a better psoition to decide
whether to take it any further or not.