gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) (10/27/87)
There seems to be a fuss about sending Minix code around. The rest of
the newsgroups seem to be able to send code up down back and forth
without losing it, what's the problem here?
I hear that there are problems with bitnet screwing up messages. It seems
like comp.os.minix is NOT the place to solve these problems. If your site
is getting mangled netnews from a bitnet neighbor, why don't you arrange
with the neighbor to put in a real live transparent link, e.g. by uuencoding
each message or batch that traverses the link and de-encoding it on your end?
If uuencode is not enough to keep it transparent, write a bitnetencode or
something. Plenty of netnews sites that don't have uucp or tcp do this.
Various people have flamed the bitnetfolks for using IBM equipment; the
real problem is that they are using IBM software. They could get UTS
from Amdahl instead and have real Unix and real netnews (running under
VM if they still need to run the crud too). More to the point, they
could patch up the worst of the botches in the IBM software (e.g. write
an ascii-with-newlines file access method, and use it) rather than
trying to get the rest of the world to change. This is not a major
challenge; I know somebody who wrote an OS/MVT access method for
getting at APL file-system files, which are FAR more alien than ascii
text files!
As I understand bitnet it's all leased lines between prearranged hosts,
kind of like usenet is all dialup lines between prearranged hosts. If
you produced some simple software that made the links transparent to
arbitrary binary data, it seems like it would spread like wildfire to
the rest of bitnet, and much of the problem would be over.
--
{pyramid,ptsfa,amdahl,sun,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu gnu@toad.com
Love your country but never trust its government.
-- from a hand-painted road sign in central Pennsylvaniaowens@psuvax1.psu.edu (Robert Michael Owens) (10/27/87)
As i posted to another news group it is possible to distribute news transparently over bitnet if the end machines are both unix/urep or mvs/jnet hosts. we psuvax1 distribute ibm style news to psuvm where it is redistributed to other ibm/bitnet hosts. the problems in the conversion process has been covered in many other news postings. we psuvax1 have and can transparently distribute news to urep-jnet/bitnet hosts. owens