eric@snark.uu.net (Eric S. Raymond) (03/18/89)
The level 7 beta of TMN-Netnews (aka Netnews 3.0) is now available for anonymous ftp; copies are also queued to the 50 beta sites that poll snark. The ftp site is linc.cis.upenn.edu; look in /usr/ftp/dist/tmnn/beta7 This should be the last beta release. The few known bugs remaining should not interfere with normal production use for most sites; and the rate of new-bug reports on each beta has been converging nicely towards zero. This release's new features include full implementation of the delsub control message and an experimental addsub counterpart. With these messages a downstream site can change its upstream subscriptions, within limits set by system admins at feed sites. Full support for the FLEXGROUPS consept (the ability to flag hierarchies so that newsgroups in them are created on the fly by article postings, and aged to expiration during periods of inactivity) is implemented. FLEXGROUPS is defaulted on for the `alt' hierarchy. Also, subject list lines are now created on the fly by readers during keyboard waits. This means that you can customize your subject list line format through an environment variable; see newsreaders(5) for details. Between my hardware problems, my flat-brokeness troubles, and some persistent bugs, it's been an epic struggle getting this release done. I apologize to everybody that waited through months of my Real Soon Nows; things should get a little easier and more regular now, I've got some income and (cross your fingers) a new development system should be coming in the door as soon as I work out the legal kinks in the donation process with my would-be benefactor. The one major task remaining (one I can't, unfortunately, do myself, not being an Internet site) is test/debug/qualification of the NNTP-interface code. Several veteran netters including Mel Pleasant and Greg Noel have volunteered to work on this; it will get done. Next on the agenda, after the NNTP support is working, is a full-fledged X-based newsreader (I wanted a good excuse to learn X anyhow). I'll also be finally implementing the enhanced-sendme-based distributed-fetch capability that will take us towards full hypertext. These changes will be issued as patch sets via UUCP to registered beta sites, and made available for anonymous ftp on linc. Here are the currently registered beta sites: amdahl crdos1 galaxia ncc sco unisec att creation hc nucleus shade uport barris csccat hhb obdient splut mcdurb belltech daver hoptoad pbox ssyx vader bigtex devon icus polyof stanton vijit bpa dg_oz killer polyslo telesci vu-vlsi cbmvax dukcds mcf pyrdc telesof wb3ffv cocktrice elan lts rambo twitch winfree cheers eplrx7 mips rinc u1100a xanadu cooper everex mstar sawmill uiucuxc zoso If you are *not* a registered beta site, but you want to play with this anyhow, please email me and get registered. That will help ensure that your change requests get handled promptly. -- 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