Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!news
From: flee@dictionopolis.cs.psu.edu (Felix Lee)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Steady state news.
Message-ID: <Faivp#r3@cs.psu.edu>
Date: 11 Dec 90 19:52:56 GMT
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Organization: Penn State Computer Science
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Nntp-Posting-Host: dictionopolis.cs.psu.edu

News volume is something like 15 megabytes a day (and growing).
expire needs about 10M to rewrite the history file.  Disk space used
by the news system varies by 25M or more on a daily basis.

Why not expire constantly?  Every time you receive some articles,
remove some other articles and free an equivalent amount of space.

In a steady-state news system, disk space usage is easier to control
and requires less care and feeding.

This is an extreme form of space-based expiry and inherits all of its
control problems.  Deciding which articles to expire may be difficult.
Has anyone figured out how space-based expiry should work?
--
Felix Lee	flee@cs.psu.edu