WG ACTION: Usenet Article Standard Update (usefor)

[Cynthia Clark <cclark at cnri.reston.va.us>]

A new working group has been formed in the Applications Area of the IETF.
For additional information, contact the Area Directors
or the WG Chair.


Usenet Article Standard Update (usefor)
---------------------------------------
  
 Chair(s):
     Simon Lyall <simon at darkmere.gen.nz>
 
 Applications Area Director(s): 
     Keith Moore  <moore at cs.utk.edu>
     Harald Alvestrand  <Harald.T.Alvestrand at uninett.no>
 
 Applications Area Advisor: 
     Harald Alvestrand  <Harald.T.Alvestrand at uninett.no>
 
 Mailing Lists: 
     General Discussion:usenet-format at clari.net
     To Subscribe:      usenet-format-request at clari.net
         In Body:       subscribe your.email.address in Subject field
     Archive:           http://www.landfield.com/usefor/
 
Description of Working Group:
 
Motivation

The Standard for Interchange of USENET Messages, defined in RFC 1036,
was released in December 1987. This RFC defines the format that format
that all usenet articles must follow (similar to the way RFC 822 does 
for email) and also covers the algorithm that is used to distribute 
usenet articles. Since that time there has been no official update 
published despite the rapid growth in Usenet and other networks that use 
the RFC 1036 article format.

A draft update to RFC 1036 ( "Son of RFC 1036" ) was released by Henry
Spencer in June 1994 but this was not further pursued and is now itself
out of date. Currently a combination of this and RFC 1036 are regarded 
as the de-facto standard.

At the present time an urgent need has been identified to formalize and
document many of the current and proposed extensions to the Usenet
Article format. Many extensions are only vaguely documented and have
competing and overlapping alternatives. A draft update to RFC 1036 ( 
"Son of RFC 1036" ) was released by Henry Spencer in June 1994 but this 
was not further pursued and is now itself out of date. Currently a 
combination of this and RFC 1036 are regarded as the de-facto standard.

At the present time an urgent need has been identified to formalize and
document many of the current and proposed extensions to the Usenet
Article format. Many extensions are only vaguely documented and have
competing and overlapping alternatives.

In particular the following areas need urgent attention:

- - Standards for the signing of articles (sign-control and PGP-MOOSE)
- - Authentication of cancels.
- - Use of non-ASCII character sets in article headers and bodies
- - Standardization of article bodies and the use of MIME in articles.
- - Standardization and extension of 3rd party control messages affecting
  articles (NOCEM)
- - General revision of various limits (eg article size) listed in
  previous standards.

and many other aspects of the standards need reviewing.

Description

The Goal of this working group is to publish a standards-track successor
to RFC 1036 that with particular attention to backward compatibility,
formalizes best current practice and best proposed practice. The Group
shall also aid and/or oversee the production of other Usenet related
Internet Drafts and Standards.

The Working Group shall:

1. Produce an Internet Draft (or series of drafts) that describes the
   core standards for a Usenet article and the features that all Usenet
   software should take account of.

2. Produce a group of Internet Drafts formally describing extensions to
   the core standard for a Usenet article (see above).

3. Produce a further Internet Draft that incorporates the core standard
   for a Usenet article (see 1) plus all those extensions (see 2) that  
   the working group believe should become part of a final standard.

4. Publish a standards-track successor to RFC 1036 that formalizes best
   current practice and best proposed practice.

5. Publish any other extensions to the Usenet Article Standard that
   warrant being formal extensions but are outside the scope of the main
   standard.
 
 Goals and Milestones: 
 
   Nov 97       Identify areas where extensions are required and write I-D on 
                minimum standards                                              

   Dec 97       Revise Internet-Draft of minimum standard                      

   Feb 98       Produce a revised internet-draft of the Usenet Article Standard
                incorporating the minimum standard and extensions produced 
                above.                                                         

   Jun 98       Submit the revised Usenet Article Standard to the IESG for 
                Proposed Standard status.                                      

   Jul 98       Submit to the IESG any extensions to the Usenet Article 
                Standard for Proposed Standard status.                         


 Internet-Drafts:

  No Current Internet-Drafts.

 Request For Comments:

  None to date.