Path: utzoo!utstat!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!pacbell.com!decwrl!shelby!morrow.stanford.edu!laura-palmer.Stanford.EDU!pst From: pst@laura-palmer.Stanford.EDU (Paul Traina) Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: C news and bogus distributions (e.g. Dist: comp) Message-ID: Date: 22 Oct 90 04:40:19 GMT References: <1990Oct11.210812.19392@zoo.toronto.edu> <1020@gvlv2.GVL.Unisys.COM> Sender: news@morrow.stanford.edu (UNIX News Service) Organization: Data Center, Stanford University, California, USA Lines: 35 markw@gvlf1-c.gvl.unisys.com (Mark H. Weber) writes: >It appears to me that the source of the confusion regarding the use of this >header is the very definition of the header itself. Does anyone know what >intent the original framer(s) of RFC 1036 had when they introduced the >concept of newsgroup hierarchy names on the "Distribution: " line? >Was this done simply because the format of the B news sys file was considered >to be frozen, and the newsgroups and distributions had to share the same field? The whole thing started when regional newsgroups such as "ba" or "ca" started forming. The authors of a few "post" programs took to a simple way of producing distribution lines. (Set the dist field the same as the top level newsgroup field). Unfortunately, what they should have done was NOT create a distribution line at all, or left it blank for the user to fill in. It's (semi) reasonable to put a Distribution: ba line on a message posted to ba.singles, but it isn't necessary, as the distribution should follow the regional newsgroup, so Distribution: world should have the same effect. However, I should be able to further limit the distribution of a regional (such as "Distribution: su" posted to ba.singles). My personal feeling is the RFC is fuzzy on this, and times have changed since this problem was last looked into. I don't want to get into a flame war about rewriting headers (which is do think is wrong; but sometimes terrorist tactics do have good effect). My approach is to modify C news so that if a message is posted to newsgroup "top.group.name" and the distribution ONLY contains "top" (as opposed to "top,canada,su,whatever") I'll just refuse to acknowlege the distribution line exists. It catches all but the most bizzare convolutions of headers and distributions (see my message about "su" and "su-export"). Frankly, I'm just pissed that the whole thing started in the first place. Distribution was always an optional field that NEVER should have been defaulted by any posting software.