Subject: USEFOR-11 troubles

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 16:41:31 +0100

Hi, Usefor-11 didn't make it in the first attempt, it got two [DISCUSS]:

https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/pidtracker.cgi?command=print_ballot&ballot_id=2253&filename=draft-ietf-usefor-usefor

Sam proposes to use a normative reference to USEPRO.  Russ Houley's
[DISCUSS] is in a similar direction, he wants to make sure that the
"security considerations" in USEPRO (referenced by USEFOR) are not
lost, i.e. published in a RFC, not only in an I-D.

Sam has some questions about mail2news gateways.  For some "more
discussion" about the Article Format GMaNe offers a list archive
with about 25,000 articles since 1997,  AFAIK mail2news gateways
had no serious difficulties to transform 822 to 1036 format in the
last decades, and MESSFOR to USEFOR is in essence the same issue:

Add magic SP, emulate missing References as explained in 2822 if
there's an In-Reply-To, fix most obs-stuff because it's illegal in
NetNews, add missing Message-ID or better reject mails without a
Message-ID if there can be other gateways of the same article, the
works, some of the technical details will be discussed in USEPRO.

Discussing gateway considerations in USEFOR would be a bad plan,
but maybe we're forced to accept a normative USEPRO reference.  If
that's the case we could also fix one [COMMENT] in the evaluation:

s/192.0.168.1/192.0.2.1/  RFC 4408 got that right, no idea why
we missed it for USEFOR, is that a missing feature in 'idnits' ?

Frank

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From: Ken Murchison <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:45:10 -0500

> we missed it for USEFOR, is that a missing feature in 'idnits' ?

Right.  That entire example was already in my copy changed to:

posting-host = "posting.example.com:192.0.2.1"

I will make the change when the I-D gets to AUTH48, unless we need to 
put out a -12 to fix the reference to USEPRO.

-- 
Kenneth Murchison
Systems Programmer
Project Cyrus Developer/Maintainer
Carnegie Mellon University

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 17:49:07 +0100

Thanks Frank - I have "compose a reply" on my TODO list.
I'll CC the WG when I do.

           Harald

--On 1. desember 2006 16:41 +0100 Frank Ellermann 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/pidtracker.cgi?command=print_ballot&b
> allot_id=2253&filename=draft-ietf-usefor-usefor
>

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 10:21:26 -0800

> lost, i.e. published in a RFC, not only in an I-D.

Reviewing USEPRO brought home to me that it's not possible to implement a
useful piece of Netnews software other than a pure article reader with
only the information in USEFOR.  That doesn't necessarily mean that USEFOR
can't advance separately as an underlying format which is then used by a
later standard, but that's definitely the approach we'd have to take to
sever the documents, which means that USEFOR will need to have no
normative references to USEPRO.

There are several that seem rather normative to me having just gone
through all of USEPRO, apart from the security considerations.  Section
3.1.4 says that control messages are defined in USEPRO, section 3.1.5
defers to USEPRO for the definition of <diag-keyword>, section 3.1.6
defers to USEPRO for the content of the Subject header (and that reference
I think could simply be dropped, as the only place that USEPRO discusses
the Subject header is in the context of a followup and then only as a
MAY), section 3.2 states that further requirements for optional header
fields are in USEPRO, section 3.2.3 defers to USEPRO for valid control
message <verb>s, and section 3.2.12 defines the action of Supersedes in
terms of cancel control messages defined in USEPRO.

On the surface, it's hard to argue against some or most of those being
normative references.

Control messages are the hardest problem here, and I expect are the most
likely to prompt a DISCUSS.  At the least, I think all article syntax
including acceptable values for control message <verb> and for Path
<diag-keyword> should be defined in USEFOR to make it a standalone format
document.  That's actually easier than it sounds, since for control
message verbs *all* values that fit the current syntax are acceptable and
interpretation is up to the protocol being used, so there's no need to
defer to USEPRO as aggressively as USEFOR currently does.

For <diag-keyword>, I would move the acceptable list of keywords (SEEN,
POSTED, and MISMATCH) into USEFOR with *brief* descriptions of their
meaning and leave to USEPRO only the specific instructions of how to apply
those meanings.  This would also simplify writing USEPRO, since USEPRO is
laid out as a list of instructions and doesn't lend itself well to a
digression on providing additional syntax for Path <diag-keyword>s.

The other references could be dropped or downgraded in their wording
easily except Supersedes, where the description would need to be rewritten
without reference to cancel control messages.

-- 
Russ Allbery ([email-masked])             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 20:46:33 +0100

Russ Allbery wrote:
 
> For <diag-keyword>, I would move the acceptable list of keywords
> (SEEN, POSTED, and MISMATCH) into USEFOR with *brief* descriptions
> of their meaning and leave to USEPRO only the specific instructions
> of how to apply those meanings.  This would also simplify writing
> USEPRO, since USEPRO is laid out as a list of instructions and
> doesn't lend itself well to a digression on providing additional
> syntax for Path <diag-keyword>s.

That went through a rather complex poll - 2nd poll - rough consensus
procedure, and while I don't recall exactly who said what my proposal
to solve it in USEFOR didn't make it.  Of course it's now harder to
list all details in USEPRO.  The theory was that it's easier to add
further <diag-keyword>s later.  Let's stick to that decision.  Maybe
remove the obscure X-keywords as unnecessary.

Frank

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From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2006 14:42:42 GMT

In <[email-masked]> Russ Allbery <[email-masked]> writes:

>only the information in USEFOR.

Just like you can't write a useful piece of mail software if all you have
is RFC 2822. But that was never intended.

>terms of cancel control messages defined in USEPRO.

USEFOR tells you enough about control messages to recognize one when you
see it, and gives a broad syntax to which they must conform. That's all
you need to know for the 'on the wire' format. That, and a hint of what
they are meant for with a pointer to look elswhere for protocol issues.

Much the same for <diag-keyword>. USEFOR tells you enough to recognize
them, but there is no reason so far as USEFOR is concerned why any words
satisfying the syntax should not be used (e.g. it is no pretext for
dropping articles as syntactically incorrect).

The Subject header reference is only to point out that there is sometimes
a miniscule bit of structure there (we probably included it to keep John
Stanley quiet :-) ).

And the other mentions are concerning protocol issues. Essentially, the
only 'semantics' we give in USEFOR are brief mentions of the intended
purpose of each header, with the minimum description of protocol to make
those mentions intelligible.

>On the surface, it's hard to argue against some or most of those being

So I think it is quite proper to regard these as non-normative IMO
(likewise the reference to security considerations, where the only ones
explicitly given in USEFOR relate to syntactic/format matters).

So, if you want to be able to publish USEFORE separately (which I was
against, but that is another story), then I think you leave these things
alone.

-- 
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: [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: Ken Murchison <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2006 13:14:36 -0500

> https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/pidtracker.cgi?command=print_ballot&ballot_id=2253&filename=draft-ietf-usefor-usefor

FYI, I created ticket #1401 in the tracker for the open issues.

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From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2006 11:03:30 +0000

>without reference to cancel control messages.
I think the WG needs to see some specific text before considering moving 
any text from USEPRO to USEFOR.