Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!amdahl!ptsfa!vixie!paul From: paul@vixie.UUCP Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: Patch #4 for 2.11 news src (Rick Adams, please read!) Message-ID: <500@vixie.UUCP> Date: Tue, 24-Feb-87 15:01:28 EST Article-I.D.: vixie.500 Posted: Tue Feb 24 15:01:28 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 27-Feb-87 01:52:48 EST References: <43111@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> Reply-To: paul@vixie.UUCP (Paul Vixie Esq) Organization: Vixie Enterprises, San Francisco Lines: 51 In article <43111@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> rick@seismo.CSS.GOV (Rick Adams) writes: >Description: > This is patch #4 for news 2.11 source. It addresses the following > problems: > > [*] A minor optimization for checknews. > Handle trailing white space better in control messages. > If you are running with history subdirectories (i.e. you don't have > dbm), you don't need the history file anymore. > Fix the STUPID typo in patch#3 that could have unlinked the active file. > [*] Fix some portability problems with the readnews/vnews 'l' command. > A few minor cleanups. The [*] above are mine. Those two fixes will repair programs I don't use. Someone asked some months back if checknews/vnews/readnews could be unbundled from inews/expire/etc, so that 'rn' users wouldn't have to keep source code and binaries and patches and other things for programs they don't use. This seemed like a good idea to me, and I looked around at the news source and thought, "yeah, it would compile a lot faster if all that news-reading stuff weren't there, and splitting it apart wouldn't be all that much work." I noticed when I upgraded to 2.11 that my old localize.sh file wasn't quite right -- there were new things to be localized, and no simple list of what they were. The .dst files were set up with Rick's defaults in most cases, and the localize scripts modify those. I thought, "all configurable entities should be held as magic cookies in the .dst files, so that the localize.sh script changes EVERYTHING. That way the defaults would all be in one place." Being fairly good at this kind of integration work, I promptly sent off a message to Rick asking if it would be good for me to do this -- if he would use my changes in the next distribution. No reply. I tried several times over several weeks; I sent mail to foobar@seismo and got mail from his MAILER-DAEMON, so I know the mail was getting to his system. I could not figure out why he wouldn't reply to me -- even to say "go away and leave me alone, I'm very busy." My suggestions were all very politely worded. Now with C News almost upon us, my changes are probably unneccessary. But I still wonder why Rick didn't reply to my mail. So in a way, this is an Open Letter To Rick Adams. Rick, are you getting this? Can someone who knows Rick personally, please send him mail or talk to him or in some way make him aware of this article? I would very much appreciate some correspondance -- I thought I had some good ideas, and I was willing to do the work myself. -- Paul A. Vixie {ptsfa, crash, winfree}!vixie!paul 329 Noe Street dual!ptsfa!vixie!paul@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU San Francisco CA 94116 paul@vixie.UUCP (415) 864-7013