hack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney) (05/15/88)
**FLAME ON** I think it's real crappy the way this Elm newsgroup is being run. I have been following it faithfully for a year or so.... Why does Dave Taylor pop in and out of running this show like a jack-in-the-box??? Who claims responsibility for distributing Elm and accepting bug reports?? Why does Dave proclaim 2.0 is imminent and then dissappear? Why is 1.7 supposed to be so great, and it's not and nobody can get it? Why does noone answer the begging questions on the newsgroup? Is this really the newsgroup out of hell? -- Greg
rsk@s.cc.purdue.edu (Wombat) (05/17/88)
In article <1022@bellboy.UUCP> hack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney) writes: >Why does Dave Taylor pop in and out of running this >show like a jack-in-the-box??? Who claims responsibility >for distributing Elm and accepting bug reports?? Why >does Dave proclaim 2.0 is imminent and then dissappear? >Why is 1.7 supposed to be so great, and it's not >and nobody can get it? Why does noone answer >the begging questions on the newsgroup? I don't claim to speak for Dave, but it's not Dave's job to run this newsgroup, support Elm for the entire world, or anything like that; I suspect that he gets paid to do other sorts of work, and that his priorities are thus focused elsewhere. The answers to your questions have all been contained in articles posted by Dave [and other folks] over the past few months; I suggest that you stop screaming long enough to listen carefully and quietly for them. Finally, I remind you that nobody is forcing you to care about or to use Elm; there are plenty of other mailers (some with newsgroups to support them) out there. -- Rich Kulawiec, rsk@s.cc.purdue.edu, s.cc.purdue.edu!rsk
boneill@hawk.ulowell.edu (SoftXc Coordinator) (05/17/88)
In article <1022@bellboy.UUCP> hack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney) writes:
#
#**FLAME ON**
#
#I think it's real crappy the way this Elm newsgroup
#is being run. I have been following it faithfully
#for a year or so....
#
#Why does Dave Taylor pop in and out of running this
#show like a jack-in-the-box??? Who claims responsibility
#for distributing Elm and accepting bug reports?? Why
#does Dave proclaim 2.0 is imminent and then dissappear?
#Why is 1.7 supposed to be so great, and it's not
#and nobody can get it? Why does noone answer
#the begging questions on the newsgroup?
#
#Is this really the newsgroup out of hell?
#--
#Greg
Gee, I wasn't aware anyone was running this group, as it seems I can post
directly to it without sending to a moderator. As far as 2.0, we are
currently running 2.0 gamma that someone was kind enough to send me from his
site. As far a Dave Taylor, last I heard he was not going to be able to put
the time into elm as je had in the past, as was looking for help.
============================================================================
Brian O'Neill, MS-DOS Software Exchange Coordinator
ArpaNet: boneill@hawk.ulowell.edu
UUCP : {(backbones),harvard,rutgers,et. al.}!ulowell!hawk!boneilldavid@pacbell.PacBell.COM (David St.Pierre) (05/18/88)
In article <2998@s.cc.purdue.edu> rsk@s.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Wombat) writes: > >I don't claim to speak for Dave, but it's not Dave's job to run this >newsgroup, support Elm for the entire world, or anything like that; I >suspect that he gets paid to do other sorts of work, and that his >priorities are thus focused elsewhere. I agree, but feel that Dave did Elm a pretty major disservice a few months ago by saying that *he* had 2.0 and then not talking about it anymore. Now people wonder whether they should look for 1.7, wait for 2.0, or ??? I thought 1.7 was supposed to come out of comp.sources.{unix, misc} several months ago. I thought I read somewhere that it was "sent back" for more testing. But at the same time, people like myself and others have picked up the software from one source or another. I even mailed a tape to Switzerland just because of all these unending discussions about 1.7 with no official source posting. I also doubt that I'm not alone in having added fixes/features/misfeatures to 1.7 since picking it up. I'd like to use this newsgroup to post some of the changes to it (I'd done the arrow key stuff a long time ago and also made left-arrow and right-arrow page backwards and forwards on the index page) but suspect that would only result in another round of people asking for 1.7 so they could start applying patches. I also suspect that there are so many mutants of 1.7 beta that applying patches is going to be a real b*t%h, you know what I mean? Face it, nobody really wants to apply diffs by hand any more. We could probably cut down on a lot of circular discussions if we just posted the sources to 1.7beta in this newsgroup, a bit at a time and then started sending fixes into a single point or just start posting them. -- David St. Pierre 415/823-6800 {att,bellcore,sun,ames,pyramid}!pacbell!david
lavallee@hawk.ulowell.edu (Warren Lavallee) (05/18/88)
From article <7120@swan.ulowell.edu>, by boneill@hawk.ulowell.edu (SoftXc Coordinator): >In article <1022@bellboy.UUCP> hack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney) writes: >> >>**FLAME ON** >> >> ................................................. Why >>does Dave proclaim 2.0 is imminent and then dissappear? >>Why is 1.7 supposed to be so great, and it's not >>and nobody can get it? >> [] > > [....] As far as 2.0, we are > currently running 2.0 gamma that someone was kind enough to send me from his > site. As far a Dave Taylor, last I heard he was not going to be able to put > the time into elm as je had in the past, as was looking for help. For those of you netters out there who are interested in Elm 2.0 Gamma and have internet access, you can ftp a compressed tar file from: 129.63.1.1 swan swan.ulowell.edu ulowell.edu Its in ~ftp/pub... there were a few bugs with it that I had to fix. There were a few problems with the #includes, and the editing functions in batch mode were a bit fryed. It works fine now. **This is not the source as it was distributed, I fixed the bugs** - Warren ---- lavallee@hawk.ulowell.edu Warren Lavallee
donegan@stanton.TCC.COM (Steven P. Donegan) (05/18/88)
In article <1022@bellboy.UUCP>, hack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney) writes: > **FLAME ON** > I think it's real crappy the way this Elm newsgroup > is being run. I have been following it faithfully > for a year or so.... > Why does Dave Taylor pop in and out of running this > show like a jack-in-the-box??? Who claims responsibility > for distributing Elm and accepting bug reports?? I hadn't noticed him popping back, must have missed that one. > does Dave proclaim 2.0 is imminent and then dissappear? The last thing I read from Dave indicated that his employer needed a little more of his time doing his normal job, and that this was the reason behind his 'abandonment' of all his faithful users. > Why is 1.7 supposed to be so great, and it's not I think it works quite nicely. The only 'feature' I have yet to be able to get to work correctly is the encryption of text within the lette > and nobody can get it? Why does noone answer > the begging questions on the newsgroup? Elm 1.7 is, and has been for quite a while, available. It is on several archive sites and if you have no access to those you are quite welcome to uucp (direct call only) it from my system. Drop me a line if you so wish. > Is this really the newsgroup out of hell? > -- > Greg Could be. -- Steven P. Donegan Sr. Telecommunications Analyst Western Digital Corp. donegan@stanton.TCC.COM
hack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney) (05/18/88)
In article <2998@s.cc.purdue.edu> rsk@s.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Wombat) writes: > I suggest that you stop screaming > Finally, I remind you that > nobody is forcing you to care about or to use Elm; there are plenty > of other mailers out there. Buzz off. I care plenty about Elm. I have it installed on about 20 machines, and have hacked it until I'm weary of it. I have posted a number of bugs fixes (that never got incorporated). And so did a lot of other folks. The versions numbers have just gone too far, and the silence from the maintainer (?) is deafening. In my opinion, the author dropped out of the race without passing the baton. -- Greg
kdavis@lamc.UUCP (Ken Davis) (05/18/88)
In article <343@pacbell.PacBell.COM> david@pacbell.PacBell.COM (David St.Pierre) writes: > >We could probably cut down on a lot of circular discussions if we just >posted the sources to 1.7beta in this newsgroup, a bit at a time and >then started sending fixes into a single point or just start posting them. > Since 2.0 is out there how about getting the sources to 2.0 posted instead? -- Ken Davis {pacbell,well,hoptoad}!lamc!kdavis kdavis@optimis-pent.arpa "The views expressed are those of mine and not necessarily those of the Department of the Army or Letterman Army Medical Center."
zeeff@b-tech.UUCP (Jon Zeeff) (05/18/88)
In article <7120@swan.ulowell.edu> boneill@hawk.ulowell.edu (SoftXc Coordinator) writes: >directly to it without sending to a moderator. As far as 2.0, we are >currently running 2.0 gamma that someone was kind enough to send me from his Is 2.0 gamma much of an improvement over 1.7? Can it be put up for anonymous ftp somewhere? --Jon -- Jon Zeeff Branch Technology, uunet!umix!b-tech!zeeff zeeff%b-tech.uucp@umix.cc.umich.edu
denny@mcmi.UUCP (05/20/88)
In article <343@pacbell.PacBell.COM> david@pacbell.PacBell.COM (David St.Pierre) writes: >I agree, but feel that Dave did Elm a pretty major disservice a few >months ago by saying that *he* had 2.0 and then not talking about it >anymore. Now people wonder whether they should look for 1.7, wait for >2.0, or ??? I also cannot claim to speak for Dave, but I would point out that Dave has a real job, and real work to do. This may or may not include further development of Elm. If it does, then one must consider the position of Dave's employer (Hewlett Packard) in all this. They may consider Dave's continued work on this project to be proprietary in nature. Either way, they are likely to have something to say about it's release to the net. With this consideration in mind, it doesn't surprise me that Elm 2.0 has not yet escaped HP. Perhaps it never will. -- Denny Page Martha, the Clones are loose again! "Wide Area LAN" -IBM Salesman
rsk@s.cc.purdue.edu (Wombat) (05/22/88)
In article <1029@bellboy.UUCP> hack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney) writes: >In my opinion, the author dropped out of the race without passing the baton. Such is the author's privilege. -- Rich Kulawiec, rsk@s.cc.purdue.edu, s.cc.purdue.edu!rsk
hack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney) (05/23/88)
In article <3023@s.cc.purdue.edu> rsk@s.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Wombat) writes: >In article <1029@bellboy.UUCP> hack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney) writes: >>In my opinion, the author dropped out of the race without passing the baton. >Such is the author's privilege. True. And after discussing the subject with a couple of people, we agreed it was a smart thing that David Taylor was lessening his involvement with Elm. After all, who would want to be doing Elm hacks for the rest of their life. It would banannify the brain. I was on the original Elm mailing list before it became a newsgroup, back when it was moderated by David. What I got out of his postings, was a desire to have Elm take off on it's own, with minimal involvement from him. (And, he indicated that was HP's desire also.) What I meant by dropping the baton is... I'm sure it is not David's desire that Elm fade away. He indicated that it should evolve. Then he said he was resigning as moderator. It appears to me that the project was not handed off to a volunteer to keep up with the bugs and releases. There were a couple of people that wrote in that they were interested in handling the project, but I don't think the issue was addressed. I'm not real sure how this sort of thing is "officially" done, but if no one is coordinating the distribution, and someone would like to, I would suggest they email to taylor@hplabs and coordinate it with him. Dave, I'd almost bet my paycheck that you read this newsgroup silently, but I'm sending you this article via email, as it appears we need your help so that folks can get back on current releases and patch levels. I know that you are not moderating the group, but from your prior postings I gather that you still work on Elm, and are still willinging and able to work on the Elm project perhaps through the postings of a volunteer??? I am not trying to belittle Dave, on the contrary, he has always replied promptly to my email, I appreciate all the work he has done, and I am grateful to HP for the public service that he is has performed. My goal was to sufficiently stir up the newsgroup into activity. My motive is to get some of my Elm bugs resolved by the community. Also, I would like to see someone take over control of patches and releases. And I apologize if you were offended when I said to "buzz off". -- Greg
amen@quequeg.UUCP (Bob Amen) (05/23/88)
From article <1029@bellboy.UUCP>, by hack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney):
+ In article <2998@s.cc.purdue.edu> rsk@s.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Wombat) writes:
+
+ > I suggest that you stop screaming
+ > Finally, I remind you that
+ > nobody is forcing you to care about or to use Elm; there are plenty
+ > of other mailers out there.
+
+ Buzz off.
This is unnecessary.
+ In my opinion, the author dropped out of the race without passing the baton.
He attempted to several times and nobody took it up. (Where were you?)
--
Bob Amen (amen@quequeg.cbi.jhu.edu) (+1 301 338-6329)
Chesapeake Bay Institute/The Johns Hopkins Universityhack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney) (05/26/88)
In article <287@quequeg.UUCP> amen@quequeg.UUCP (Bob Amen) writes: >+ Buzz off. >This is unnecessary. True, and I have apologized once already. >+ In my opinion, the author dropped out of the race without passing the baton. >He attempted to several times and nobody took it up. (Where were you?) Where was I? If I remember correctly, I was still running "Msg" (David Taylor's predecessor to Elm) on some machines, and trying to debug 1.3 version of Elm. Elm had just gone from a mailing list to a regular newsgroup. (I am fuzzy on the dates, but I think that versions 1.5, 1.7, and 2.0 all came out after that. I don't recall seeing 1.4 or 1.6). There WERE a couple of people who volunteered to moderate the group and handle bugs (including someone from Texas Instruments here in Dallas). But, I don't think anyone ever said, "Here, you do it.". Does anyone out there claim to be handling Elm bug reports and associated releases? -- Greg
davis@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Jim Davis) (06/02/88)
Greg Hackney hack@bellboy.UUCP writes:
gh> In my opinion, the author dropped out of the race
gh> without passing the baton.
The baton was passed. Unfortunately the receiver seems to have
dropped it. Knowing many of the politics and personalities that
motivated Dave to drop his support for this public domain Elm but
not feeling free to comment too extensively let me just say:
There exists interest in continued public existance of Elm.
Dave has not been a "jack in the box" poping up and down in
his support. He was there continuously until he "passed on
the baton". Typically he is still reading these very discussions
and commenting (could this be why you think he is poping up and
down?), but cannot greatly support public domain Elm at this time.
I have noticed at least one offer of Elm 2.0 gamma on the net.
I should point out that this source has "leaked" and is probably
well worth scarfing up. (Dave did not leak it, nor did I.) 2.0
gamma has some bugs, but fewer than 1.7b (personal opinion).
[IPOF: I still run 2.0 gamma because it worked a bit better
for me that its successors.]
-- Jim Davis
[Here come the flames.]hack@bellboy.UUCP (Greg Hackney) (06/03/88)
In article <2019@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM> davis@hplabs.hp.com (Jim Davis) writes: > I have noticed at least one offer of Elm 2.0 gamma on the net. >I should point out that this source has "leaked" and is probably >well worth scarfing up. (Dave did not leak it, nor did I.) > -- Jim Davis I recall a posting that Dave made saying that he hoped to make Elm 2.0 available to the public, after he had removed some recently developed proprietory code..... great! Then, I saw no more mention of it. There were numerous inquiries on the net as to the availability of 2.0, with no answers (at least none that I saw). Then, someone posted that 2.0 was available via anonymous ftp. I naturally assumed that Dave released it. I personally didn't get a copy of 2.0 gamma until just last week, but I know it has been widely circulated for quite a while. >I should point out that this source has "leaked" and is probably >well worth scarfing up. This means that it was not HP's or David Taylor's intention to release 2.0 as such. But now that it is out, ok to use? Or more to the point, may the readers of this newsgroup use version 2.0 as the "base" version, or should we as users erase it, and work with 1.7? Thanks for your viewpoint from HP, Jim. I understand that Dave can no longer support Elm in the manner to which it is accustomed, and I do appreciate all the work that has been done, and hope and expect to see Dave jump in there often to offer up his expertise and enhancements. Enough said...Let's get on with it... -- Greg