- From: Al Gilman <Alfred.S.Gilman@IEEE.org>
- Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 19:15:20 -0500
- To: uri@w3.org
Small edit:
Where it says
>
> Observe, in contradistinction to the news scheme, that the <news-server>
> is not optional here, because the mapping from <article-numbers> to
> actual articles is unique to each server.
>
[in lieu of
"is unique to each server."
substitute:]
varies from server to server.
... or ..
is established independently by each server.
[why?]
'unique' is stronger and not guaranteed.
Al
At 1:44 PM +0000 11/5/04, Charles Lindsey wrote:
>This draft seems pretty good as regards the news scheme, so my
>quibbles are just for tidying things up.
>
>2. Scheme Definition
>
>Perhaps that should be "The news URL scheme", and keep Section 3 for
>the nntp scheme.
>
> The news and nntp URL schemes are used to refer to either news groups
> or individual articles of USENET news, as specified in RFC 1036.
>
> The news URL takes the form:
>
> newsURL = "news" ":" [ news-server ]
> ( newsgroup-name | '*' | message-id )
> news-server = "//" server "/"
> message-id = id-left "@" id-right
>
> <server> is defined in [2396bis]. Note that there is widespread use
> of the username-password authentication in news servers, so news
> clients should implement this part of the <server> syntax.
>
>Maybe that "should" is a bit too strong, and there should be some
>warning that username-password authentication has security risks.
>Also, Port numbers need to be mentioned. So how about:
>
><server> is defined in [2396bis], and provides for a <host>, a
><port> (defaulting to 119 in this scheme) and possibly a
>username/password. This latter is usually deprecated on security
>grounds, but is still in widespread use on current news servers and
>so clients MAY implement it.
>
>{There are currently drafts in hand for SASL and TLS for the NNTP
>protocol, so the practice should disappear gradually, but I am still
>concerned that there seems to be no way for URL schemes to cope with
>SASL.}
>
>Then I think you need to say:
> If no <server> is specified, the resources are to be retrieved from
> whatever server has been configured for local use.
>just to save the bother of repeating it three times in what follows.
>
>2.1 The newsURL has a <newsgroup-name>
>
>2.2 The newsURL has a *
>
>2.3 The newsURL has a <message-id>
>
>Those three sections are mostly fine, if you move the repeated
>sentence as I suggested above. However, under the <message-id> case
>you need to say:
>
> A <message-id> corresponds to the <msg-id> of RFC 2822 and to the
> Message-ID of section 2.1.5 of RFC 1036, but without the enclosing
> "<" and ">".
>
>which comes almost verbatim from RFC 1738. There is often confusion
>as to whether those enclosing "<" and ">" are meant to be present,
>and some implementations of this scheme are tolerant enough to allow
>them.
>
>
>
> For example, neither
>
> news:"abcd"@example.com
>
> nor
>
> "ab\cd"@example.com
> ^
> news:
>
> is in canonical form, because the form
>
> abcd@example.com
> ^
> news:
>
> is available.
>
>2.4 The nntp URL scheme
>
>So I would call this section 3. Here is a suggested text:
>
> The nntp URL schemes is used to refer to individual articles of USENET
> news, as specified in RFC 1036.
>
> The nntp URL takes the form:
>
>
> nntpURL = "nntp" ":" news-server newsgroup-name "/" range
> news-server = "//" server "/"
> range = article-number ["-" [article-number]]
> article-number = 1*DIGIT
>
>{The syntax for <range> is taken from
>draft-ietf-nntpext-base-21.txt, so you could instead refer to that.
>The syntax for <news server> probably does not need to be repeated
>here.}
>
> Observe, in contradistinction to the news scheme, that the <news-server>
> is not optional here, because the mapping from <article-numbers> to
> actual articles is unique to each server.
>
>3.1 The range is a single <article-number>
>
> The resource retrieved by this URL is the Netnews article numbered
> by the given <article-number> in the given <newsgroup-name> on the
> given <server>.
>
>3.2 The range encompasses more than a single <article-number>
>
> The resource retrieved by this URL is some means to gain access to
> the articles numbered within the given <range> of <article-
> number>s in the given <newsgroup-name> on the given <server>
> (usually by invoking a suitable news reading agent initialized to
> access that range). A <range> of the form "nnnn-" provides access to
> all articles numbered "nnnn" and above.
>
>{Having said all that, is the form "nnnn-mmmm" actually implemented
>anywhere? RFC 1738 provided just a single <article-number>. OTOH, I
>can see that the form "nnnn-" could be useful to people for keeping
>track of the last <article-number> read who now want to see
>everything newly arrived since then. I even do this myself on
>servers that do not support the NEWNEWS command (but by making the
>direct NNTP calls, not by using any URL).}
>
>{And finally, if we all agree that the nntp scheme is now properl;y
>defined, we can go back to the question of whether the two schemes
>should be combined, though I think it would probably be better not
>to.}
>
>--
>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@clerew.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
Received on Saturday, 6 November 2004 01:55:39 UTC