[news.software.b] Son of TMN-netnews progress report

eric@snark.uu.net (Eric S. Raymond) (04/04/89)

All beta sites with uunet connections (who aren't already registered as
Internet sites on the beta list) are urged to drop me a line telling me
they have uunet. This will speed up 7.5 distribution.

In <f7LPo#1ySUZm=eric@snark.uu.net> I wrote:
> Remaining trouble areas are:
> 
> * A core dump some sites report during the rdactive() call of expire.

This has been stomped! It turns out to have been a XENIX-cc specfic problem;
that compiler apparently can fail to zero out uninitialized static internal
int variables. The rest of the code has been checked for such constructions,
and explicit initializations have been added where necessary.

> * Two sites report that their history file gets entirely rewritten on each
>   rnews run (!).
 
This goes away if the code is recompiled with DEBUG off. A permanent fix is
in the works.

Beta 7.5 will also include full Yellow Pages support, thanks to Mark Nagel.

Warning: there is one `flag day' associated with this release -- the article-ID
format is changing (to eliminate a potential problem with packed timestamps or
hash values spelling out obscenities, it's going from radix-62 to radix-52;
no vowels any more). (This change suggested by a recent comp.risks article;
yes, there are legal reasons).

Several other small bug fixes and tweaks will be included. Watch this space
for the 7.5 announcement.

Today's tossed roses go to ambar@oracle (who is sleeping now, I hope) and
Mark Nagel (nagel@ics.uci.edu). Keep up the good work, everybody!
-- 
      Eric S. Raymond                     (the mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)
      Email: eric@snark.uu.net                       CompuServe: [72037,2306]
      Post: 22 S. Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355      Phone: (215)-296-5718