Notes On News

While writing the new Gnus version, I have been forced to sit down and actually read a few technical documents. Not that I don't like doing so, it's just that I seldom seem to find the time. After a while, an archive seem to be forming, so I though, «Hey! Why not just put them all in one spot and create a few links and stuff.» No sooner thought than done.

This is not meant to be an all-encompassing, all-powerful, and totally up-to-date repository of all knowledge concerning news (and newsreaders) ever written, but just a collection of various notes that may (or may not) be of interest for people who write newsreaders.

RFC

RFCs specify anything and everything that's important to the Internet community, but I've picked out some that are of special relevance to mail and news handling.

1. RFC 822 - Standard for ARPA Internet Text Messages
2. RFC 977 - Network News Transfer Protocol
3. RFC 1036 - Standard for Interchange of USENET Messages
4. The Son of RFC 1036 is not an actual RFC, but a sketch of what might become an RFC in the future. It's a very thorough document, and if you close your eyes every time it mentions MIME (which is (ca.) 136 times per page), it's quite nice. A PostScript version is also available.
5. RFC 934, Proposed Standard for Message Encapsulation.
6. RFC 1153, Digest Message Format.
7. RFC 1123, Requirements for Internet Hosts -- Application and Support.

MIME

In these, the final days, the ninth scourge is upon us, and its name is «MIME». If you can't enjoy it, just lie back and fight, I say. Here are the documents you will have to read to be able to see the number of the beast:

1. RFC 1437, which is, bar none, the most important MIME document. Read it, and learn it by heart.
2. RFC 1341, «MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions): Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies».
3. RFC 1344, «Implications of MIME for Internet Mail Gateways».
4. RFC 1437, «The Extension of MIME Content-Types to a New Medium».
5. RFC 1521, «MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part One: Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies»
6. RFC 1522, «MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part Two: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text»
7. RFC 1563, «The text/enriched MIME Content-type»

Good Net-Keeping Seal Of Approval

A chap called Ron Newman came up with the excellent idea of doing a survey to see which newsreaders complied with the RFC's, and which newsreaders you should avoid like the plague. (Plague - pine & qwk).

He has written a document stating what a newsreader would have to comply with to get the seal, which can also be found here, which is probably a newer version of the same.

Tim Pierce is keeping an archive of seal evaluations that are good reads.

Other-worldly Notes

1. The rn killfile faq
2. The trn faq
3. Tom Limoncelli has written a vaguely amusing document about why you should not write a newsreader. Feel free to ignore anything he says, although he does have one or two good points.
4. Spec for the SOUP offline reader package format.
5. Spec for the babyl (rmail) mail box format. version 5.
6. Overview database / NOV General Information.
7. Self-Discipline in text or html formats.
8. Usenet Software: History and Sources.
9. The NoCeM faq.
10. Internet drafts.
11. Common NNTP Extensions.

Software

Sources to most readers can be found at ftp.uu.net. Using a more local mirror would probably be a good idea.

These notes were compiled by Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen. If you have any further documents that you think may be of interest, please do mail them to me at larsi@ifi.uio.no.