C News patch of 7-Sep-1990

[Larry Blair]

In article <1990Sep13.203645.12937 at scuzzy.mbx.sub.org> src at scuzzy.mbx.sub.org (Heiko Blume) writes:
=since cnews has become really stable, i would suggest posting the
=whole thing soon. that would also be an opportunity to start using
=release numbers and patchlevel.h etc. (i like files like cnews-1.0.tar.Z :-)

Patch _numbers_?  In C News?  What a novel idea!

I notice that, if we were counting, we are up to PL 18.  This is about what
I would expect from a piece of software of this complexity.

I'm sure that Henry will gladly try to defend his scheme again.  He has never
presented a reasonable explanation.  His reasons have been such things as
"It's an experiment" and "We don't subscribe to the patch-of-the-month club."
Interesting that there have been 18 patches in 15 months.  I'll bet the reason
this time will be "It's too late to change."

One of the statements that Henry has made repeatedly is that C News not
supposed to be the universal news transport system.  The fact is that more
and more sites are switching to C News and the refusal to accept the problems
generated by C News are propogating.  My favorites are: exceedingly long
message id's, accepting of old news with no check, and insufficient logging
for statistics generation.

I think that Henry and Geoff need to accept that fact that their software, in
the absence of anything better, is becoming the net standard and act in a
manor that is responsible and consistent with the rest of the net.  The time
has come for normal patch levels and reasonable message id's.
-- 
Larry Blair   ames!vsi1!lmb   lmb at vicom.com