reid@Glacier.ARPA (12/22/84)
> > .... If it does have a Distribution line of 'net', > > for example, 2.10.1 inews uses this in preference to the newsgroup > > name, and WE DON'T GET THE ARTICLE because there's no 'net' entry > > in our sys line. > > I've had our sys line changed so that we get all net groups now, but > > it's a bit of a heavy hammer to solve the problem. Any suggestions?? > > Adrian Pell ({mcvax,edcaad}!ukc!ru-cs44!adrian) > > It too me a while, but I have just realized that Australia has > been suffering from this problem too. Decvax sends us news, > but only a few groups. In this case, changing our subscription > so that we get everything is not a viable alternative. > > So, here are two patches, one for 2.10.2 to omit distribution > lines when they say nothing new to a 2.10.2 system (that is, > when 2.10.2 would ALWAYS ignore the distribution anyway), > and one for 2.10.1 to make it handle disributions rationally, > as 2.10.2 does. > > Please - if you are running 2.10.2 do install this fix, its > very simple, and will not harm anything at all. Pardon me for butting in, but isn't this just an aliasing problem, in the programming languages sense of the word? The identifier "net" is overloaded; it is used both as a distribution and as a top-level group name. If people just change to use the distribution "world" instead of "net", this problem will be solved, will it not? Then you can have lines like this: munnari:oz,world,net.flame,net.singles,net.motss,net.religion and get your four favorite newsgroups while ignoring all of the flamage on net.sources and mod.std.c... Unless I am missing something, this simple change of distribution key name will fix things without making any source code patches anywhere, except in those places in 2.10.2 where the code is defaulting "net" as the distribution name. -- Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA
kre@munnari.OZ (Robert Elz) (12/25/84)
(The original was posted to net.sources.bugs as well as net.news.b - this is not a bug, bug report or fix, so I have deleted that group from Newsgroups line). In article <2033@Glacier.ARPA> Brian Reid (reid@Glacier.ARPA) writes: | | Pardon me for butting in, but isn't this just an aliasing problem, in the | programming languages sense of the word? The identifier "net" is overloaded; | it is used both as a distribution and as a top-level group name. You are right. | If people | just change to use the distribution "world" instead of "net", this problem | will be solved, will it not? Yes, that would solve the problem, but how do we get people to change? "net" has been the world wide distribution for quite a while now, everything says that's what it is, that's what people use (and its what 2.10.2 uses, and people are running that, its almost impossible to undo it). Note, 2.10.2 has fixed the problem, if everyone would convert to that, then this would be a non-issue. Its the earlier systems that do decidedly improper things with Distribution lines that cause trouble. (At least, with current usage of Distribution what they do is improper. From looking at the code, I suspect that Distributions have grown to a usage that is not quite the same as that which was originally planned). The change I suggested to 2.10.2 was merely to help to placate the earlier systems, it wouldn't be needed if everyone was running 2.10.2. I suggested that in the expectation that those people running 2.10.2 were people interested in keeping their systems up to scratch, and most often, it is articles originating at those sites that we lose. People still running earlier systems have already demonstrated some reluctance (justified or otherwise) to change - getting them to fix things is a little harder. Note: I am not advocating that anyone switch to 2.10.2 now, it has its problems too, and 2.10.3 is due in the relatively near future. That version should be worth installing though. Also: it is possible to fix this (get round the problem) if you're running 2.10.1 by changing your sys file for all sites that you send limited newsgroups to by adding the following incantation net,!net.all, at the head of the distribution list for each remote system that you send some "net" newsgroups to. If you send limited subgroups of any other group you should include a similar incantation with that group name replacing "net" in the above. So, for example, at decvax, the sys file line for mulga should read... mulga:net,!net.all,net.unix-wizards,net.bugs,net.lan,... Either that, or the fix I suggested in <609@munnari.OZ> should be installed on all 2.10.1 sites that send anything less than everything to any other site. This is derived from the article by nsc!chuqui in net.news.adm in the past day or so (though see my response to his article). Robert Elz decvax!mulga!kre