Protocol Action: 'Netnews Architecture and Protocols' to Proposed Standard

[The IESG <iesg-secretary at ietf.org>]

The IESG has approved the following document:

- 'Netnews Architecture and Protocols '
   <draft-ietf-usefor-usepro-14.txt> as a Proposed Standard

This document is the product of the Usenet Article Standard Update 
Working Group. 

The IESG contact persons are Lisa Dusseault and Alexey Melnikov.

A URL of this Internet-Draft is:
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-usefor-usepro-14.txt

     Technical summary:
        This document describes the operational procedures involved
        in running the NetNews service, including the roles of all
        the components of the service. It establishes terminology and
        expectations of behaviour for News servers independent of the
        protocol they use to communicate.
	 This, together with draft-ietf-usefor-usefor, obsoletes RFC
        1036.

     Working group summary:
        The USEFOR working group has been working on this document in
        various versions since 1998. This version was split from
        the -usefor document in 2004. Progress has been slow, and
        contention has erupted over both major and minor matters.
	 The group is now down to a very small size (~5 people), and
        it is not believed that working at this longer will improve
        the document significantly.
	 The WG has consensus that this document is a far better
        specification than RFC 1036.

     Protocol quality
        The specification allows major News implementations to claim
        conformance as-is. Some innovations done in the course of the
        WG's work have been incorporated into existing News servers.
	 The editor is himself a News server implementor.