Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Conversion to C news
Message-ID: <1990Sep3.233231.1967@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <138@tdatirv.UUCP> <1990Aug31.155234.8788@zoo.toronto.edu> <!7`%+A^@rpi.edu>
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 90 23:32:31 GMT

In article <!7`%+A^@rpi.edu> tale@turing.cs.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) writes:
>... a few examples of what C News will accept and batch for
>redistribution: 
>
>o articles without a Date: header.

It is quite likely that C News will change to enforce RFC1036's list of
required headers; Rick Adams suggested this some time ago and we're
inclined to think it a good idea.  Note that "enforcement" will mean
"drop it on the floor if it's illegal"; we think it unwise, in general,
to attempt to return bad articles by mail.

>o articles with a header like:
>  "Sender: news@zip.eecs.umich.edu (\nNot Available)"
>  where \n is a newline.

There are limits to what C News can do about such things without doing
a complete RFC822 header parse, something we're not likely to do for
several reasons (notably, the fact that minor RFC822 violations are
common and relatively harmless).  Ultimate responsibility for correctness
of headers must rest with the originating site or gateway.

>o articles with a "local" distribution.

This is simply a reflection of not considering "local" to be a magic word,
which we think is a correct decision, if only because it's so hard to
define just what it should mean.
-- 
TCP/IP: handling tomorrow's loads today| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
OSI: handling yesterday's loads someday|  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry
