Xref: utzoo news.admin:14646 comp.mail.uucp:6700 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!spies!zorch!xanthian From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: news.admin,comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: BITFTP Message-ID: <1991May25.202516.12961@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Date: 25 May 91 20:25:16 GMT References: <1991May16.161706.2680@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <1991May18.204257.9520@iguana.uucp> Organization: SF-Bay Public-Access Unix Lines: 51 merce@iguana.uucp (Jim Mercer) writes: > stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes: >> Like I said. The problem was not BITFTP. The >> problem is software that happily attempts to >> scribble across a disk on which there is no >> space. We would not accept this in any other >> application, especially an unattended one, but we >> will accept this from uucico. > isn't this like saying "cars produce so much > pollution, we neet to improve peoples lungs" ? You may well deserve your "butcher of bitftp" appellation if you keep up that kind of response. John is exactly right; the problem is, and always has been, a piece of broken software, and a corresponding broken protocol, that is willing to keep accepting input it no longer has room to store. People will ignore a toothache until the tooth rots to the gum line; uucico has been that kind of a problem; this site has suffered, as I'm sure does every UUCP site with limited disk space, news (and perhaps mail; how would one know?) being dropped on the floor regularly because the transfer protocol hasn't the sense to say "full up, hold the rest for later". That's as broken as broken software can get, but it suffers from the same problem Henry Spenser is trying to correct with some draconian C News decisions: the uucico software is so widespread, getting a maintenance action to take place _literally_ everywhere looks like too much trouble to undertake, so why fix what's broken? The solution would have to be like Henry's; install a new uucico that is _deliberately_ incompatible with the old one, and bring it up (after suitable testing) everywhere with a breathing sysadmin at once to a schedule, and let the rest of the sites go isolate until their sysadmins have been kickstarted by the resulting incompatibility into fixing their sites, too. Volunteers? (Ha!) Kent, the man from xanth.