Xref: utzoo news.software.nntp:1402 news.software.b:8299
Newsgroups: news.software.nntp,news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: NNTPD hates Message-IDs with TWO '@'s in them.
Message-ID: <1991Jun17.191642.27639@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1991 19:16:42 GMT
References: <1991Jun13.043253.20660@zoo.toronto.edu> <6014@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> <1991Jun15.212751.1558@twinsun.com> <6020@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <6020@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> sob@tmc.edu (Stan Barber) writes:
>>C News needn't discard _incoming_ articles with nonconforming
>>Message-IDs; it is allowed to, but it doesn't have to.  However, it
>>must _generate_ articles with conforming Message-IDs.
>This is inconsistant. If CNEWS is discarding articles with bad dates
>(and those articles are being discarded during RELAY, not when first 
>posted), then it should do that for all headers.

C News doesn't do 100% RFC822/1036 header enforcement because that is
complex and time-consuming and unnecessary.  We generally enforce only
those restrictions that appear to be necessary for some specific reason.
(In the case of dates, it is essential to have a parsable date to avoid
recirculation of stale news.)  We are somewhat reluctant to tighten up
checking just because somebody else's software is breaking -- we tend
to feel that this is the breakee's problem -- although we have done so
on occasion.
-- 
"We're thinking about upgrading from    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 3.5."              |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry