Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Wmail 2.6 (Posted for F. van Kempen; I haven't looked at it)
Keywords: flame, Wmail, lint
Message-ID: <4510@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 11 Nov 89 14:45:51 GMT
References: <4465@ast.cs.vu.nl> <527@isadora.ikp.liu.se>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 34

In article <527@isadora.ikp.liu.se> hacker@isadora.ikp.liu.se writes:
>Wmail 2.6 (Posted for F. van Kempen; I haven't looked at it)
>                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>I think you should have looked at it, because this program is loaded
>with bugs and the author did not run it through lint or a spelling
>checker before handing it over to you.

I find this a difficult business.  I posted this for him because he has
email access and no news access.  If he had had news access, he would
have posted it himself, and you could flame him all you want for being
a lousy programmer, and I wouldn't be involved.  I suppose I could have
simply refused to post post on the grounds that I won't post anything
that I haven't checked out myself, but all that would have done is
prevented the net from having a mail program, something that there is
interest in.  I thought it was a reasonable compromise to post it with
the message saying although I was the guy who type Pnews, it wasn't
my code.

Thus, I accept responsibility for things I write myself, and if I blow
it, can rightly expect to get dumped on for it.  But I don't think it
is entirely fair to blame me for not verifying programs when I am only
posting them as a favor to someone else without news access.  
If the consensus of the group is that I should not post anything that
I cannot personally vouch for, I will just say point blank "no" to requests
for favors of this kind, since I don't have the time to test software unless
I happen to have a personal interest in it.  At the moment I have no
interest in any software that is not in P1003.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)

P.S.  I know Fred, and he is quite eager and ethusiastic.  He runs a big
bulletin board using MINIX.   He has made many changes to MINIX in the
area of getty, init, login, etc. to make MINIX more solid for use as a
public timesharing system.  I may incorporate some of these.