Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!ATHENA.MIT.EDU!jdaly
From: jdaly@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Should login xterms show /etc/motd?
Message-ID: <9007241310.AA25364@E40-358F-1.MIT.EDU>
Date: 24 Jul 90 13:10:12 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 68


The following is information regarding the real-time messaging
system here at Athena (zephyr) and GMS (Global Messaging System).

Should you have any further questions, you may direct them to 
info-athena@athena.mit.edu.

Janet Daly
Information Officer, Project Athena


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X          Zephyr notification service, applications, & libraries
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X               Zephyr is a wide area, multicast, subscription based messag-
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X               ing system.  It supports arbitrary typecasting on messages,
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X               thereby permitting Zephyr to be used as a common carrier to
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X               messages of whatever type yet without central registration
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X               of those types.  The practical applications of this system
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X               include operational control as well as rendevous applica-
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X               tions such as OLC (vide infra).
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X          GMS global message system
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X               The traditional Unix login-time announcement mechanism of
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X               displaying the contents of the file /etc/motd is not main-
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X               tainable in a wide area workstation environment.  In addi-
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X               tion, the contents of that file may change on a schedule
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X               dynamically different from that of the rest of the software
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X               suite, necessitating maintenance and writeability con-
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X               straints on the whole software suite unsuitable on behalf of
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X               that one file.  Instead, the Athena environment includes a
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X               global message service (GMS) that permits the retrieval of
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X               the message of the day from a server, comparison of the mes-
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X               sage retrieved with messages already viewed by the user, and
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X               display of the relevant or the explicitly requested message.
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X               In this way, the GMS facility is a mix of the functionality
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X               provided by the /etc/motd and mesg mechainsms.
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