Re: Upgrading the news URL

[Dan Fabulich <dfab@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andrew Pam wrote:

> Given the Usenet propagation delays, this might mean that it could take
> up to a few days to receive a requested article.  This would make this
> system unworkable for interactive browsing.  You might need to add a
> separate server daemon to respond immediately to requests for articles.
> You would also need to provide some mechanism for broadcasting or
> multicasting the requests which does not waste too much bandwidth.

True.  Hence the NNTP server extensions.  NNTP is about to get a lot
faster anyway as streaming and compression become widely used in NNTP
transmission.  If this could somehow get implemented as one of the new
server commands, it would basically solve the whole problem.

BTW, you didn't answer my question...  What's the status on turning that
draft into an RFC?

> > A library like this could maintain far more than any managed library
> > ever could.  The magic of this system is that if ANYBODY wanted to
> > archive a given file, if just one person thinks an article is important
> > or interesting, it would be available for anyone, anytime, anywhere.

> This has always been one of the Xanadu goals.

Right, and that's what I've always liked about Xanadu.  The problem
tends to come in when it involves everyone converting to proprietary
software or connecting to a managed database.  IMHO, it's important that
Xanadu exist on top of some already existing network, rather than
requiring new server software and a special client; it's also important
that this DOESN'T turn into DNS with its administrators and
authoritative databases.  Xanadu on top of NNTP solves both problems.

     -Give me ambiguity or give me something else-
                          dAN