Path: utzoo!mnetor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!rpi.edu!tale From: tale@turing.cs.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: Conversion to C news Message-ID: Date: 2 Sep 90 07:33:46 GMT References: <138@tdatirv.UUCP> <1990Aug31.155234.8788@zoo.toronto.edu> Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Computer Science, Troy NY Lines: 36 In-Reply-To: henry@zoo.toronto.edu's message of 31 Aug 90 15:52:34 GMT In article <1990Aug31.155234.8788@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: In general, C News is 100% transport-compatible with B News, and there is no reason why you should lose articles or cause any fuss at your feed. The only probable rough spots in the transition are that (a) the transition process is not as well documented as it should be, and (b) you will have to learn how to run a somewhat different news system. It depends a little by what exactly you mean by "in general". I know you and Geoff subscribe to the "be liberal in what you accept and conservative in what you send out" philosophy and the "don't dick with headers" philosophy, but there is a conflict between the two. Here are a few examples of what C News will accept and batch for redistribution: o articles without a Date: header. o articles with a header like: "Sender: news@zip.eecs.umich.edu (\nNot Available)" where \n is a newline. o articles with a "local" distribution. Fortunately with the last case you can tell it not to. Not so easy with the others. All of those cases give B News systems grief. When running nntplink the problem is compounded because of how quickly it will empty the queue and keep trying to send the articles which the B News site will simply never accept. Both ends waste lots of cycles churning through them and the logs quickly grow with messages complaining about inbound news being garbled. This is a problem I am suffering with _all_ of my B News site connexions and there doesn't seem to be a pleasant remedy for it readily available. -- (setq mail '("tale@cs.rpi.edu" "tale@ai.mit.edu" "tale@rpitsmts.bitnet")) The most remarkable thing about looking at a picture of myself was the sudden realisation that my hair is in fact parted on the left and not the right.