taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) (01/09/90)
Jim Sadler at Boeing asks about the latest version of Elm from HP, as included in HP-UX 7.0, to which Syd Weinstein responds with some thoughts of his own, Syd being head of the Usenet Elm development group. Some of what he says, however, seems a bit unreasonable, and I'd like to talk about a few of them here... > This is Y-HP Elm and not Usenet Elm. Back when Dave Taylor left HP, > Elm was split into two different paths, One by Y-HP, and one on Usenet. That's true, except I hadn't left HP when I let the source go; I had just burned out on tracking the quirks of a thousand incompatible architectures. Actually... Hmmm... I think that the sequence of events was more like I posted a note to the net asking if anyone was interested in picking up ownership of the Elm Mail System for further development, and then later, shortly after Syd and group showed up, was notified by Yokogawa Hewlett-Packard of Japan that they were tasked with the job of creating an easier-to-use interface to Unix mail [too bad they weren't aware of OpenMail being developed at Pinewood in England] and that they had choosen Elm as the logical successor to mailx. Since my license agreement with Hewlett-Packard details that the firm is able to have a free, no strings attached copy of the source at any point they'd like to productize it, I gracefully offered to assist in the incorporation of Elm into HP-UX 7.0. (actually, a better way to phrase that might be "Hearing the news from YHP was tremendously exciting; I was thrilled to have finally managed to get Elm into the HP-UX system and immediately offered to help") Kohji Kanda, the manager of the Elm group at YHP promised that they wouldn't work in a black box and create a strange hybrid, but instead would work with me and with the Usenet group to at least be aware of what directions the Usenet version was moving in, though not necessarily to track them closely. > The Y-HP people did not feel it worth it to incorporate our changes, > and we did not like how HP specific their changes were. Well, I don't know if the tone implied by "worth it" is appropriate here, actually, since the goal of the two groups was different; for YHP the goal was to have a mail system that ran flawlessly on HP machines and helped HP customers deal with the complexity of Unix mail. If it were similar to a standard piece of software, so much the better, but if it had to diverge to improve the HP value added of having Elm as part of the OS, then so be it. I personally agree with this philosophy and would be surprised to find a similar situation where ANY company wouldn't act similiarly. The HP-specific changes comment is also kind of interesting since all along Elm has been designed to run on HP-UX and HP computers, with other machines added simply for portability and to aid in the mail system becoming a 'de facto standard', as it were. There is, for example, support for HP terminal softkeys and arrow keys built in to the program, but not for other types of terminals... > Also, at the time they sent me their source, it was not working > properly, and I have not heard from them since. That actually doesn't surprise me; there was quite a ramp-up cost for the YHP people from what I could see. On the other hand, I think that once they got going with the project, they did do what they had promised not to do; they withdrew into their own lab to work on the new Elm, and didn't let anyone peek until it was too late to modify. Many people within HP who ran the alpha and beta versions of YHP-Elm quickly turned to other versions due to missing features, new quirks, and so on... Similarly, I saw a rough preliminary version of the Elm tutorial which was quite "rough" (to be generous) and after spending a few days editing it and submitting almost a completely rewritten document, never heard from the group again. > Their version of Elm is based on Elm 2.0, with their own internal > changes. I do not know what extensions, if any, they incorporated > from our 2.1 or 2.2. I surmise that there are few, if any, modifications from 2.1 or 2.2, but again, as per my comments above, that was not particularly high up on the list of priorities and requirements for the project, so I can't see how we can fault them for this. > I suggest you decide if you wish to run their version, and throw ours > away, or run ours and throw theirs away. I knew this was coming, but > there was little we could do about it. But there is now: someone from HP could go into the 2.2 version of usenet-Elm and add a starting option that indicates you're going to be using/creating an HP-Elm .elmrc file...y'know, more important than the .elmrc file, has anyone (Jim?) checked to see if the alias data files are in a compatible format? > It doesn't know about the newer options in your elmrc file, in fact, > it will destroy yours and convert it to its, if you save a new copy. Well....in the earlier versions of Elm if you save a .elmrc file from within the Elm program it would move the existing one to something like ".old.elmrc"...so if that's still there, you'd be in reasonable shape. > I have no idea if the two versions will ever merge in the future. I doubt it. Completely different goals for the two development groups is not a good basis for talks of merging... > The Y-HP version is developed in Japan by Y-HP, and I have had very > little contact from them, and frankly, most of it not very good. Perhaps people as they install 7.0 and try it can post here what they think of the new HP-Elm, when compared to the latest version from the Usenet group? -- Dave Taylor Intuitive Systems Mountain View, California taylor@limbo.intuitive.com or {uunet!}{decwrl,apple}!limbo!taylor
jsadler@misty.boeing.com (Jim Sadler) (01/10/90)
/ misty:comp.mail.elm / taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) / 11:10 am Jan 8, 1990 / >But there is now: someone from HP could go into the 2.2 version of >usenet-Elm and add a starting option that indicates you're going to >be using/creating an HP-Elm .elmrc file...y'know, more important >than the .elmrc file, has anyone (Jim?) checked to see if the alias >data files are in a compatible format? I haven't checked the alias format. It does not replace the .elmrc file once it shows the bad lines it quits to let you fix them. I intend to look at both versions, but I am inclined to use the usenet version. We have alot of different systems and it is nice to have a common mailer. We'll see. > > -- Dave Taylor >Intuitive Systems >Mountain View, California > >taylor@limbo.intuitive.com or {uunet!}{decwrl,apple}!limbo!taylor >---------- jim sadler 206-234-9009 email uunet!bcstec!jsadler|root | hplabs!hpubvwa!b-mrda!jim