Path: utzoo!utstat!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!ladcgw!fmayhar From: fmayhar@ladc.bull.com (Frank Mayhar) Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: Dynamic "smart" expiration? Message-ID: <1990Jan10.210305.22094@ladc.bull.com> Date: 10 Jan 90 21:03:05 GMT References: <1989Dec27.033817.9953@smsc.sony.com> <1989Dec28.063932.13720@robohack.UUCP> <68634@looking.on.ca> <1989Dec29.213539.2801@utzoo.uucp> <6118@yunexus.UUCP> <69448@looking.on.ca> <1120@utoday.UUCP> <`QF52&@rpi.edu> <69654@looking.on.ca> <1990Jan8.230624.8684 Organization: Bull HN Information Systems Inc. Los Angeles Development Center Lines: 30 In article wayne@dsndata.uucp (Wayne Schlitt) writes: >[sarcasm deleted] >(yes folks, the _only_ two news readers that i have ever used have >been written in emacs lisp. i am so happy with gnus that i doubt that >i would ever spend the time to switch to another reader, even if it >was "better"...) All this means is that gnus won't use the subscription capability right away. When someone decides to add it, it will. If that person is you, so much the better. But the capability will be there, in NNTP and (possibly) in the news maintenance mechanism, to support it when you're ready for it. Just because it's not easily feasible to add the capability to *every* news reader *immediately* is no reason to not design it and implement it in *some* news readers. When system administrators need it, it will be there (in an RFC, perhaps, and in a C library), and they can add it to the readers that they and their users use. Over time, most of the commonly-used news readers will pick it up. And any new ones can have it designed into them. The thing about subscription lists is that, once you have them, it's possible to do other things, like restricting certain newsgroups to certain subscribers (or not allowing certain users to subscribe to certain newsgroups), or collecting better readership statistics, or goal-driven expires, or several other useful things. Certainly, the end user doesn't get very much from the capability, but that's not the point, is it? It's the sysadmin that needs it. -- Frank Mayhar fmayhar@ladc.bull.com (..!{uunet,hacgate,rdahp}!ladcgw!fmayhar) Bull HN Information Systems Inc. Los Angeles Development Center 5250 W. Century Blvd., LA, CA 90045 Phone: (213) 216-6241