[news.software.b] News 2.11.14 and Xenix

gordon@sneaky.TANDY.COM (Gordon Burditt) (09/26/88)

In response to my article about inews deadlock while processing "sendme"
control messages on systems like Xenix that use mandatory file locking,
I received a dozen requests for a version of News 2.11 which works on 
Xenix.  All of these requests contained such an awful mess of %'s, @'s
and !'s in the return addresses I can't figure out what host the sender
was on, so I can't reply by mail.

Yes, I have changes to make News 2.11 work on Xenix.  Yes, I can make
them available.  Most of the changes relate to making the HOME conditional
work right (i.e. the news directories are ~news/spool and ~news/lib, evaluated 
at runtime, and most uses of #defined string constants like SPOOLDIR outside 
of ?pathinit.c are wrong) and personal taste in configuration.

I DO NOT have changes to make News 2.11 work on a *[012]86 processor (my 
system uses a 68000, which has 32 bit integers, no memory models, no funny
64k limits related to malloc(), etc.) and apparently everyone thinks "*86 
CPU" when hearing the word "Xenix".  So probably nobody is going to want the
changes.

If anyone still wants the changes (relative to 2.11.14 unmangled source):

- Use email, do not post.
- Include a valid RFC976 address (which has NO @'s in it) or a uucp path. 
  Put it in the body of the mail message, not in the headers.
- If you are on ARPA, any mail traffic is required to further the purposes 
  of the Government (which are:  killing people, forcibly taking property 
  from people, enslaving people, and wasting resources) so either I'm not 
  allowed to send it or you are using it for an immoral purpose and I
  don't want to send it.
- If you really want the changes, I'd be interested in an explanation
  of why.  I included the locking fix in my last posting, and there aren't
  any *86 fixes.

					Gordon L. Burditt
					...!killer!ninja!sneaky!gordon