lear@NET.BIO.NET (Eliot Lear) (12/22/89)
I was thinking about placing some files in SPOOLDIR to document
the current location in the hierarchy. For example in the root
one might see a .description file that contained the following:
This is the root of the news hierarchy.
and in a .doc file something on the order of this:
The root level of the hierarchy is the top of the tree containing
all of the categories ...{ad nauseum}.
Say for SPOOLDIR/bionet, I might have something like the following
for .description:
Groups pertaining to biology.
And in .doc:
The bionet newsgroups are a bunch of newsgroups gatewayed to mailing
lists run by soandso for the advancement of the biological sciences,
sponsored...
Anyway, there are several problems with this approach, and some
alternatives. The first problem is that one might argue that SPOOLDIR
should house only hierarchies, and that the news transport system
should have free run of those directories, and that nonvolatile
information doesn't belong in there. Unfortunately, that's where the
users may go fishing. But an alternative is to keep a parallel
hierarchy for this information. What do others think?
Also, I have a TMNN question. Do all the news readers have to be
setuid, or do they pass through a filter, or what?
Thanks in advance,
Eliot