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From: ddl@husc6.UUCP (Dan Lanciani)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: arc that UnSquashes but doesn't XXX but does YYY etc...
Message-ID: <2596@husc6.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 26-Jul-87 20:33:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: husc6.2596
Posted: Sun Jul 26 20:33:47 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 27-Jul-87 00:40:45 EDT
References: <3289@ncoast.UUCP> <2520@hoptoad.uucp>
Organization: Harvard University Computer Services
Lines: 44

In article <2520@hoptoad.uucp>, gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
| hyc@umix.UUCP (Howard Chu) wrote:
| > I've recently modified the ARC that was posted some time ago...
| >                  If anyone's interested, I can post the sources...
| 
| We already have way too many versions of "arc for Unix" around,
| not to mention arc for other operating systems.  We also have
| enough postings and repostings of half-trashed copies.

	Do you want to eliminate repostings of arc or repostings in
general?  The second is probably much more profitable.

| What we need is a volunteer!  [It ain't me babe.]
| 
| I'll be glad to send my copy of "arc" to anybody who will promise to
| merge all the versions they get into a single, useful, working version.
| Lord knows everyone has separately fixed the top 10 bugs but I bet
| among us there are another 100 fixed.  That code was just NOT portable!
| E.g. I found a dependency on order-of-execution that I bet a lot of folks
| never found -- and even on MSDOS I noticed that the 'c' option would
| destroy any file it tried to re-crunch, because it used the same temp
| file name for two different things.
| 
| I'd like to ask Brandon and Rich and the moderators for the other sources
| groups to reject or defer posting Yet Another ARC until we find somebody
| who will take it under their wing.  Of course, nothing but common sense
| can stop postings to alt.sources...so I hereby request a little common sense.

	Having posted the latest repost of arc to alt.sources, I somehow
feel my common sense is being questioned.  Perhaps I'm being too sensitive,
but I can certainly take the hint.  However, please note that the truncated
articles posted to comp.sources.whatever (1) were not submitted by me and
(2) were originated at the comp.sources.whatever distribution point already
truncated because no one there checked...
	Please also compare the volume of messages generated by people
griping about (and responding to gripes about) not being able to
unsquash pk archives on unix with the load placed on alt.sources by
posting the solution to this burning problem, being sure to weight
the numbers for value/unit volume.  [Individuals might want to compare
the time they spent griping to the time it might have taken them to
make the necessary changes to their own copy of arc.]

					Dan Lanciani
					ddl@harvard.*