RE: RE: [leafnode-list] What the hell is that?

["Michael O'Quinn" <michael@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 12 Jul 2002, Bulgrien, Kevin wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: William Hooper [mailto:whooper@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> > Sent: Friday, July 12, 2002 11:25 AM
> > To: leafnode-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > Subject: Re: RE: [leafnode-list] What the hell is that? 
> > 
> > There is something you are failing to account for, though.  
> > As soon as you try to post to a news server (which is when 
> > the Message IDs are created if I understand it right) you are 
> > no longer just a member of your own "small hobby network".  
> > You become come a member of the Internet.  Other applications 
> > do have requirements for unique FQDN also if they are 
> > interacting with Internet services.  An example I just came 
> > up against myself is that you can't send an SMTP e-mail to 
> > any rr.com address unless your E-mail headers have a VALID 
> > FQDN (which is one step more than just a FQDN that Leafnode 
> > is asking for).  If you don't then your will get SMTP reject 
> > messages and your mail will not go though.
> > 
> > And as discussed when the whole FQDN requirement was added, 
> > getting a domain name isn't that difficult.  There are a 
> > number of free "Dynamic DNS" services that will give you a 
> > name (for example "whooper.dnip.net" "whooperdnsq.org").  And 
> > once you decide to go a little further actually registering a 
> > Domain name with e-mail forwarding and web hosting isn't that 
> > expensive anymore (my sister just registered a domain for $15/year).
> > 
> > Hope that helps put the issue in perspective.
> > 
> > William Hooper
> 
> Okay.  But I did account for that, since my prior message talked
> about how to avoid picking a name that might collide with a read
> one.
> 
> Then in the help file, add that as a fourth choice and mention 
> that free FQDN's are available as another option...  If being 
> generous, list a few providers known at the time of writing...
> 
> Still, at home I use my AT&T POP for e-mail because I don't keep a 
> continuous connection to the internet and don't want mail bouncing 
> if I go on vacation for a month.  I doubt that my situation is so 
> unique.  With news its either available longer, or, it won't affect
> me seriously if I miss a week or two...
> 
> Whereas I can see using a local news server for caching issues, it is
> harder for me to justify using a local mail server that attaches to 
> the internet without both a registered domain name and a server that
> regularly gets on the net.  In other words, I don't think its so far
> fetched for someone to use leafnode - and that be the only service 
> that needs an FQDN...
> 
> I'm learning too.  Maybe its just as well I learn more by getting a
> free FQDN.  It just seems that the complaints on the list show that
> there might be times when it was okay to fudge if you did so 
> carefully...

O.K.

If I take my NEWSREADER, and point it at my ISP's news server, I can read
and post messages all day long.  It doesn't matter if I have an FQDN, it
doesn't matter if I use dial up, DSL, Cable, or the good old universitie's
FDDI/Ethernet.  It does not matter WHICH newsreader I'm using, nor does it
matter what operating system (or non-OS, as it were...) I am using.  I
don't have to configure anything except the name of the server and
possibly port and authentication information.

That's it.

New leafnode is MORE than a news reader.  Many newsreaders cache news -
one very well known example is MS-Outlook.  Leafnode not only caches news,
it can also distribute it to more than newsreader.  It also is capable of 
doing other things a newsreader by itself cannot.

HOWEVER:

That fact should not prevent leafnode from being able to act just like any
other newsreader the majority of circumstances.  When posting news, simply
make it behave just like any other "regular" newsreader.  I assume that
they either generate something with some random and some non random
components (Username, date & time, plus a random number, for example), or
they simply let the ISP's news server do the dirty work.

Why can't leafnode, by default, simply act like every other newsreader 
ever made?

Now I know this will likely break certain things.  It will not work if
someone wants to host a local group using leafnode, since those articles
will never get posted to the ISP.

If leafnode attempts to post the same article to more than one news 
server, and allows those servers to determine the Message-ID, then there 
will be duplicate messages floating around because the Message-IDs will be 
different.

There are probably other situations where a "correct" configuration needs 
to be done.  But for perhaps the majority of the users, a simple 
transparent pipe that happens to cache news is what they want.  They read 
news from one server, and they post news to one server.  That's it.

Again, why can't leafnode, in it's simplest configuration, just act like 
any other newsreader when posting news?

I'll say this.  I've wondered about this for a long time as I've seen the
FQDN issue come up over and over and over (and over and over) on this
list.  I've particularly wondered why in the almost 20 years I've been
dealing with Usenet I've NEVER before seen such clash and conflict over
such a simple matter.

I am most certainly NOT trying to create conflict here, so I apologize
ahead of time if I've ruffled some feathers.  Nor am I trying to create a
bunch of extra work for the developer.  In fact, much the opposite.  The
amount of energy I've seen go into the FQDN issues amazes me.  If my
proposal works, it would settle the whole thing down for all but the power
users who want to get fancy (like myself).  Those of us who do weird
things with their software EXPECT to have to do more schlep to make it
work.  But for the average joe who simply wants it to work as advertised
with minimum hassle, let's remove the hassle.

What would it take, coding wise, to make leafnode act like a simple 
newsreader when it posts?

Michael O'Quinn



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