Subject: [dispatch] PROPOSAL: NNTP Working Group

From: Read News <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2020 13:43:41 -0400

Hello Dispatch working group,

How are you? I hope you are well and staying safe from Coronavirus.

I am writing this email today to see what you would think of an extension
of the NNTP (Usenet/Netnews) protocol. The last major update to the NNTP
protocol was in 2006, and the last minor update was in 2010. Since then,
the total amount of binaries on Usenet has extended by 10 fold.

Usually, this would be cause for no concern, since "if it aint broken;
don't fix it". However, the sheer massive amounts of these articles have
caused some new nonstandardilzed additions to the NNTP protocol between
large scale peers. One of these additions are 64-bit article numbers, which
was specifically prohibited in 2006 in RFC 3977 but has been added anyway
since many newsgroups have exceeded the 2 billion article mark and Usenet
providers like HW Media keep articles for a *very* long time. There are
many other "unstandarlized" extensions to the NNTP protocol like commands
relating to hybrid feeds, binary article feeding, compressed articles, etc.

To accomplish standardization of these features, I was wondering if any of
you would be interested in contributing to and setting up this WG. I know a
fair bit of people who are interested in working on it, and I wanted to see
what it would take to get something like this rolling. Thank you!

---

From: [email-masked] (Dale R. Worley)
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2020 11:32:44 -0400

Read News <[email-masked]> writes:
> I know a fair bit of people who are interested in working on it, and I
> wanted to see what it would take to get something like this rolling.

It sounds to me like there's good reason to undertake this work.  I
myself probably won't be participating.  But the first step is to get
five or 10 of the people who are interested in working on it to say so
on this mailing list.  Then it shouldn't be hard to get a working group
chartered.

Dale

---

From: Julien ÉLIE <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2020 18:51:33 +0100

Hi all,

>> relating to hybrid feeds, binary article feeding, compressed articles, etc.

Yes, standardizing something about how to deal with 64-bit article 
numbers is worthwhile.  Some people already shared ideas about that.
Same thing for headers-only/hybrid/hash feeds, PAT command with extended 
wildmat format and a few other features.
There is a list of errata to RFC 3977 that should be dealt with, 
possibly leading to Version 3 of NNTP.
We also need to standardize internationalized Netnews headers.

As for compressed articles, note that RFC 8054 took care of it with the 
COMPRESS command standardized in 2017:

    It is currently addressed only partially by unstandardized commands
    like XZVER, XZHDR, XFEATURE COMPRESS, or MODE COMPRESS.  Yet, these
    commands are not wholly satisfactory because they enable compression
    only for the responses sent by the news server.  In comparison, the
    COMPRESS command permits the compression of data sent by both the
    client and the server, and removes the constraint of having to
    implement compression separately in each NNTP command.  Besides, the
    compression level can be dynamically adjusted and optimized at any
    time during the connection, which even allows disabling compression
    for certain commands, if needed.  If the news client wants to stop
    compression on a particular connection, it can simply use QUIT
    ([RFC3977], Section 5.4) and establish a new connection.  For these
    reasons, using other NNTP commands than COMPRESS to enable
    compression is discouraged once COMPRESS is supported.

> on this mailing list.  Then it shouldn't be hard to get a working group

I've added the list of the former NNTP working group in the discussion. 
Maybe people there will be interested in reviving the WG!

As far as I am concerned, I'm willing to participate.

-- 
Julien ÉLIE

« Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information
   available. » (Benford's law)

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2020 11:53:39 -0700

Julien ÉLIE <[email-masked]> writes:

> I've added the list of the former NNTP working group in the
> discussion. Maybe people there will be interested in reviving the WG!

And, to be explicit, the ietf-nntp mailing list still exists and I'm happy
to continue to host it as a working group mailing list (or for that matter
any other sort of discussion mailing list) for this purpose if that would
be helpful.

https://lists.eyrie.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-nntp

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

---

From: Read News <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2020 15:55:57 -0400

Sure thats a good idea. Once the working group is formed, then we could use
yours.

Julien i read your email and I like your ideas. Keep finding any interested
people!

On Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 2:53 PM Russ Allbery <[email-masked]> wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> dispatch mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dispatch
>

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 Mar 2020 16:35:42 -0400

>the total amount of binaries on Usenet has extended by 10 fold.

I agree that we could use a modest update to NNTP at least to document
and standardize the extensions that large providers are using.

---

From: Ben Campbell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2020 18:02:48 -0500

Are the needed extensions obvious and cut-and-dried, or would they need discussion and thought?  (That is, does this need work-group level discussion or an AD-sponsored draft?)

Ben.

> On Mar 15, 2020, at 3:35 PM, John Levine <[email-masked]> wrote:
>

---

From: Read News <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 2020 19:15:06 -0400

Hi Ben,

I think some of the extensions are pretty clear ( what Julien said about
the compressed headers on HW Media servers + 64 bit article numbers +  the
errata in the previous NNTP rfc), but we could also use some discussion and
thought on what else we could add. So both I guess. Some guys on the
newsgroups are providing us with ideas already, so we could take those into
consideration.

On Sun, Mar 15, 2020 at 7:03 PM Ben Campbell <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Are the needed extensions obvious and cut-and-dried, or would they need
> discussion and thought?  (That is, does this need work-group level
> discussion or an AD-sponsored draft?)
>
> Ben.
>
> > In article <CAKNnaCMhmsW07eTkAxXK7_WegNL=-n_k=
> [email-masked]> you write:

---

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 Mar 2020 19:29:49 -0400

> Are the needed extensions obvious and cut-and-dried, or would they need discussion and thought?  (That is, does this need work-group level discussion or an AD-sponsored draft?)

It depends.  There are a some things like 64 bit sequence numbers which 
are documenting widespread existing practice.  There's other stuff that 
might need a little work to reconcile different versions.

Perhaps we can ask the guy who proposed this to send in an I-D so we can 
see how ambitious the changes are.  I'm happy to edit and make it I-D-ish.

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

---

From: "Hollenbeck, Scott" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2020 11:36:00 +0000

> -----Original Message-----
> From: dispatch <[email-masked]> On Behalf Of John R Levine
> Sent: Sunday, March 15, 2020 7:30 PM
> To: Ben Campbell <[email-masked]>
> Cc: DISPATCH WG <[email-masked]>
> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [dispatch] PROPOSAL: NNTP Working Group
>
> > Are the needed extensions obvious and cut-and-dried, or would they
> > need discussion and thought?  (That is, does this need work-group
> > level discussion or an AD-sponsored draft?)
>
> It depends.  There are a some things like 64 bit sequence numbers which are
> documenting widespread existing practice.  There's other stuff that might
> need a little work to reconcile different versions.
>

I was the AD who shut down nntpext in 2005. At the time, the WG had devolved to two people who couldn't agree on much of anything and no one else bothering to participate. A lot can change in 15 years, but before we resurrect the WG it would be a good idea to see a detailed description of the current issues in I-D format. It'll help people decide if it's something that they're willing to support and get involved with.

Scott

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From: Ben Campbell <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2020 11:55:47 -0500

(Adding the original poster in case they are not subscribed yet)

In summary, I think enough people have responded to show that there may be interest in some work in this area, but people want more details on the issues to be fixed. The appropriate next step would be to submit an internet-draft that discusses those issues in detail.

Thanks!

Ben.

> On Mar 16, 2020, at 6:36 AM, Hollenbeck, Scott <shollenbeck=[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> [email-masked] <mailto:[email-masked]>
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dispatch <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dispatch>

---

From: Read News <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2020 13:26:59 -0400

Yes I am working on a internet draft as we speak. Thank you all and I will
let you know when I submit it.

I will also be signing up on the mailing list with my real name and
personal email so people know who I am.

On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 12:56 PM Ben Campbell <[email-masked]> wrote:

> In summary, I think enough people have responded to show that there may be
> interest in some work in this area, but people want more details on the
> issues to be fixed. The appropriate next step would be to submit an
> internet-draft that discusses those issues in detail.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Ben.
>
> On Mar 16, 2020, at 6:36 AM, Hollenbeck, Scott <
> shollenbeck=[email-masked]> wrote:
>
> I was the AD who shut down nntpext in 2005. At the time, the WG had
> devolved to two people who couldn't agree on much of anything and no one
> else bothering to participate. A lot can change in 15 years, but before we
> resurrect the WG it would be a good idea to see a detailed description of
> the current issues in I-D format. It'll help people decide if it's
> something that they're willing to support and get involved with.
>
> Scott
>