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