RFC 3977, "Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)", October 2006

Errata ID: 1521
Status: Rejected
Type: Technical
Publication Format(s) : TEXT
Reported By: Julien Élie
Date Reported: 2008-09-23
Rejected by: Lisa Dusseault
Date Rejected: 2008-09-29

Section 3.4.1 says:

Except as an effect of the MODE READER command (Section 5.3) on a
mode-switching server, once a server advertises either or both of the
IHAVE or READER capabilities, it MUST continue to advertise them for
the entire session.

It should say:

Except as an effect of the MODE READER command (Section 5.3) on a
mode-switching server, once a server advertises either or both of the
IHAVE or READER capabilities, it SHOULD continue to advertise them for
the entire session.

Notes:

This condition should not be treated as a MUST but as a SHOULD.
Indeed, we can have the following case (amongst others):
* a news server connects to another one in transit mode;
* IHAVE is advertised;
* the news server authenticates via AUTHINFO (an NNTP
extension defined in RFC 4643);
* it is now authorized to only stream articles, thus IHAVE
is no longer available, replaced with STREAMING (an NNTP
extension defined in RFC 4644).

RFC 3977 should not prevent such a case from happening.
Otherwise, it would compel a news server to advertise IHAVE
even though that command is not available to the user.
The same remark also applies to the READER capability.
--VERIFIER NOTES--
This is a request to change the protocol, not an errata. Changes like this need to go through a new RFC.

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