Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!seismo!lll-tis!mcb
From: mcb@tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch)
Newsgroups: news.software.nntp
Subject: Re: NNTP for VMS and MS-DOS?
Summary: "Binary-only"? (VMS)
Message-ID: <22344@tis.llnl.gov>
Date: 27 Jul 88 20:16:12 GMT
References: <793@amethyst.ma.arizona.edu> <12388@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Reply-To: mcb@tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore CA
Lines: 21

In <12388@ames.arc.nasa.gov> yee@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Peter E. Yee) writes:
> The VMS version [of an NNTP client] has been completed (in fact it is use 
> here at Ames).  That's the problem.  There were a few hard-coded ames 
> dependencies (like who the USENET gateway host is, etc).  
> These are being changed to be environment
> variables (or whatever you call it under VMS), and when this work is done,
> it will be made available for public ftp.  This is binary only, and requires
> WIN/TCP.

"Binary-only"?  Does this mean that it is usable by binary-only VMS
sites, or that the NNTP code is only distributed as binary?  If the
latter, why?  Does the author not want to release the source, or what?  
I can see making a binary version available for people at sites without
compilers (?), but knowing how complex a newsreader is,  I wonder how
this can work as a binary without the numerous compile-time config
options.  Besides, how will the bugs (if any :-)) get fixed if the
source isn't out there to be hacked on?

Michael C. Berch 
(Not a VMS user)
mcb@tis.llnl.gov / uunet!tis.llnl.gov!mcb / ames!lll-tis!mcb