On Tue, Aug 28, 2018 at 10:24:51PM +0100, Mark Rousell wrote:
If you have a bunch of users on remote SMTP and NNTP servers then it's
always a wash. (MUAs don't typically download the entire message body
unless asked to, just as news readers don't typically download the entire
message body unless asked to.) Basically, the efficiency argument is bogus.
I can only say that I disagree that the bandwidth efficiency is bogus overall.
If by "remote [...] NNTP servers" you mean other NNTP servers that are
federated with your own, then this is surely a bandwidth saving compared to
email. I.e. The data only needs to be sent once to the remote NNTP servers for
local distribution to users who connect to those servers, thus reducing
bandwidth usage overall.
No, because the idea of having ISPs set up NNTP transit servers for
individual small discussion groups is...unlikely at best. You've already
stipulated that you don't want to talk about usenet, so stop talking
about 'a generic architecture of NNTP transit servers that isn't usenet
but is still open to arbitrary groups and users but doesn't have any of
the problems of usenet because it's carefully controlled and thus
doesn't have abuse issues but isn't prohibitively resource intensive
and people will set up serves and join the network because nobody likes
stupid old HTTP anyway' and instead start talking about something that's likely
to be implemented: centralized NNTP gateways to the services most people
will use via SMTP or HTTP, with NNTP client access to the gateway. You
might see people create private transit servers for local access, but
the number of clients using such servers instead of the primary one
would suggest de minimis bandwidth savings. If anything, the private
transit servers would end up like most private debian archive mirrors
and consume more bandwidth than they save (because most of the
transferred files never get used). And in this model, any putative
"transfer efficiency of NNTP" is simply not compelling.
I know you know this but I'll say it anyway: REST isn't a single protocol, it's
just a type of protocol. There are loads of REST-based protocols around. Which
one do you choose? There are no standardised REST protocols for message
distribution that I am aware of. There's nothing REST-based that is like SMTP,
or POP3, or IMAP, or NNTP, or anything else that has broad client support
across a range of device types in this context.
It's so incredibly uncommon to find a REST based discussion forum that
doesn't come with its own HTML UI that I don't consider it worth
considering. So the "broad client support" in question would be a web
browser and that basically includes everything. Welcome to the 21st
century! Then, if your content is compelling enough, people will use
whatever wacky REST API they need to get your content if they want to go
beyond the HTML UI. I'd guess that the number of people using google
APIs (for example) today, whether knowingly or unknowingly, exceeds the
total number of people that ever used NNTP, even if those people just
don't understand how things would be better if they were using NNTP
instead. If you meant to talk only about dedicated protocol-specific
thick clients, then yeah, there probably aren't as many for specific web
forums as there are clients for SMTP, POP3, IMAP, or NNTP. But most
people don't really care. (Yes, I've gathered by this point that your
number one requirement is the ability to use an NNTP client--I'm
referring to the other people.)
hopefully inoffensive manner.
Sorry, no.
But anyway, I get that you really really like NNTP. Have fun, don't
expect a lot of converts.
