eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) (06/27/91)
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >To properly implement the robustness principle, >when you relay traffic you *must* make sure it meets the specs, either >by repairing deviations or by rejecting nonconforming articles.... >We chose rejection.... In short, here's the C News line of reasoning: Be conservative in what you send. Send an exact copy of what you accept. ---------------------------------------- [ therefore ] Be conservative in what you accept. The logic is inexorable. By this argument, the signs of liberality in what C News currently accepts are bugs, strictly speaking, if the article is sent elsewhere. E.g. to conform with the RFCs, C News should no longer forward articles whose dates have days like `Wednesday' or hours like `1:23:45'.
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (06/27/91)
In article <1991Jun26.182201.10100@twinsun.com> eggert@twinsun.com (Paul Eggert) writes: >The logic is inexorable. By this argument, the signs of liberality in >what C News currently accepts are bugs, strictly speaking, if the >article is sent elsewhere. E.g. to conform with the RFCs, C News >should no longer forward articles whose dates have days like >`Wednesday' or hours like `1:23:45'. Essentially correct. We may never enforce 100.0% conformity, because it's costly and largely pointless. However, any areas in which enforcement is currently loose are historical accidents rather than guarantees. Should a specific reason for tighter enforcement appear, it will happen. This all, mind you, refers to *relaying*, where the combination of distrust of automatic "repair" of problems and unwillingness to rewrite headers without dire need leads us inevitably to constraining the form of input to match the form of output. We *are* rather more liberal in what we accept as local postings, and inews does do certain kinds of cleanup. -- "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