Xref: utzoo comp.sys.apollo:5706 comp.sys.hp:5581 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!munnari.oz.au!metro!news From: jimr@maths.su.oz.au (Jim Richardson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo,comp.sys.hp Subject: Re: Netpower: encourage HP to improve customer services Message-ID: <1990Jul9.024603.12441@metro.ucc.su.OZ.AU> Date: 9 Jul 90 02:46:03 GMT References: <1990Jul6.015817.23710@metro.ucc.su.OZ.AU> <544@eba.eb.ele.tue.nl> <1990Jul6.155846.7327@calgary.uucp> <1663@tuvie> Reply-To: jimr@maths.su.oz.au (Jim Richardson) Organization: Dept of Pure Mathematics, University of Sydney Lines: 75 In <544@eba.eb.ele.tue.nl>, wjw@eb.ele.tue.nl (Willem Jan Withagen) writes: > [...] only two weeks ago, after the posting of patches by Brian Quintro >and some asking around with our Apollo-office in Holland, they (Apollo) are >going to mail patches to all larger sites. Good for Apollo Holland! So pressure *can* get services improved. But this is still not ideal: mailing tapes through the post to some sites will be more work for HP in the long run than making patches available on one FTP host so all Internet sites can get them themselves. >NOTE: I'll put the patchtape info file in our anonymous ftp, for those who > missed the posting of it. > FTP: eba.eb.ele.tue.nl (131.155.2.25) in pub/apollo/patchinfo.Z Thanks for doing this, Willem. At least I now know what problems the 9006 patch tape might fix ... if we could just get the patches. We only got the 9003 tape here because our contact in the Australian HP Response Centre kindly made an unofficial copy for us himself: I'm grateful for that, but it's hap- hazard from our point of view and inefficient from HP's. In <1990Jul6.155846.7327@calgary.uucp>, dan@cs-sun-fsd.UUCP (Daniel Freedman) writes, in the context of a heart-felt article with which I greatly sympathize: > [...] Since Suns are more open than Apollos, > and since there is *much* more Sun expertise out there than Apollo > expertise, the "hassle differential" between making something work on a > Sun and making it work on an Apollo is greatly reduced. [...] There aren't as many Apollo users as Sun users (maybe this is an advantage: the volume in comp.sys.sun is frightening! :-) But there is still plenty of Apollo expertise on the net. This and other points are well illustrated by the following: In , glass@ocf.Berkeley.EDU (Adam Glass) writes: >In article <1663@tuvie> mike@tuvie (Inst.f.Techn.Informatik) writes: >> Now with Domain this could be a real headache. Since chroot does >>not work (I guess it will *NEVER* be fixed), anonymous ftp is not so >>simple. Still, I remember having read an article about someone having >>fixed the ftp-server to be safe for anonymous ftp. Maybe HP/Apollo >>should start by fixing ftp themselves and distribute such a version. [...] > >A version of the ftpd that doesn't require chroot(2) can be found on: > ocf.berkeley.edu > 128.32.184.254 This version was developed by Sam Shen (sls@ocf.berkeley.edu) in May: there's one expert for a start. Now if HP were listening on the net, they could ask Sam Shen for permission to put his code into the Apollo ftpd distribution, and then we'd have a version which could support anonymous ftp *and* the Apollo filetype extension (see "filetype" in ftp(1)). Better still, why can't HP be "open", in Daniel Freed- man's word, and publicize the *source* of their modifications to ftpd and other widely available code? There's a precedent in /domain_examples/tcp/gated. Then people on the net could keep ftpd up to date and HP could re-import the results. Another case crying out for this is sendmail, where the latest official Apollo version is 5.52 (5/6/86): FOUR years out of date! A more open and co-operative approach by HP would benefit both customers and the company itself. Thanks to the people who've posted and sent mail supporting the "netpower" idea, especially the HP employee who's relaying some of our discussions into the in- ternal HP notes groups. I'm trying to write a first draft of a document we can put to HP. Everybody -- please keep posting your comments and complaints about HP services. -- Jim Richardson Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Internet: jimr@maths.su.oz.au ACSNET: jimr@maths.su.oz FAX: +61 2 692 4534 -- There have been flurries of complaints about HP/Apollo's performance on Usenet before, but so far they've always died away leaving the bad old status quo in place. Let's not let that happen this time.