Linda Littleton <LRL%PSUVM.bitnet@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> (02/13/90)
I was very surprised to find out in the past week or so that the bit
groups are leaking out to Unix land and that the Unix folks are unhappy
about various things about them. There is an NNTP managers discussion
list (nntp-managers@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU) where they discuss stuff.
To join it, send email to nntp-managers-request@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu.
This is a person, so you just write and ask to be added to the list.
What follows are much edited (by me - to save space and your time
reading) excerpts from their discussions over the past few months.
The last item listed was written to this list by Bill Verity of PSU
and very much reflects my position on all of this.
What do you think? We need to talk among ourselves and with them about this.
=========
Here's the contents of all the mail I saved on the controversy. Basically
it boils down to this:
1. both psuvm and ucbarpa gate bit.all onto into USENET.
2. At some site(s) downstream, they get gated back into mailing lists.
3. At some further point along the line, they come back in again, and there
they overwrite each other repeatedly because they have the same message
ID's, etc., etc.
4. The net result (excuse the pun) is that things are left in an uncertain
state, there are multiple copies of the same article, duplicates end up
on the list, etc. Things then get really ugly...
What Eric and other folks want to do is for you and he to agree on a plan of
action so this behavior is stopped. I suspect that will require some minor
modifications on both sides. I stand ready to help, if I can.
My personal feeling is that a change has to be made, but that it has to be
made ``in situ'' (obviously lots of folks have come to rely on NETNEWS), and
that some sort of name rewriting should be done to map the names correctly.
===========
It is time for me to throw down the gauntlet - I'd like you all to
stop distributing the bit.* newsgroups. Here's why:
1. they have bad names - we went through considerable pains years ago
to set up a reasonable hierarchical name space. The names they're
choosing are very poor by comparison. It is long past the time that the
LISTSERV based mailing lists should have been integrated into the
standard 7 top level name space, with mail/news gateways.
2. there should not be a bit.* for the same reasons that there should
not be a .bitnet top level domain name. USENET is a topic oriented,
information network that spans many transports. It should not have
transport specific names for its topics except as the topics in
question related to the maintenance of that transport system (i.e. I
have no objection to an "inet.operations" that is about operational
problems of the Internet, I just don't want anything *else* to be
inet.*).
3. Many of the LISTSERV groups duplicate Internet mailing lists and
USENET newsgroups, and therefore have messages with the same
message-IDs transiting them as their USENET counterparts. This will
lead to problems in distributing the USENET newsgroups, because you'll
have <1234@foo.bar> in bit.listserv.barf, and comp.barf. Only one of
them will get that message - and it will depend on which one arrives
first. Very Bad Stuff, Folks.
I have been looking for a BITNET site with UNIX systems and netnews,
and some reasonable expectation of stability who can set up the
software to gateway the LISTSERV stuff with netnews and make it work
long term. Any volunteers? Once we find that person/site, the final
question is one of name choices for each LISTSERV group.
===========
A related issue is BITNET headers. The last time I looked (a couple
months ago) at groups being gatewayed into bit.all there were far too
many
From: WHOEVER@FOOVM
to interoperate comfortably with email. Perhaps this has
improved--I don't know. In any event, if you do find someone willing
to gateway LISTSERV into the traditional USENET hierachy, which I think
is a Good Idea by the way, I'd like to see that gateway do some (gasp)
header munging.
===========
I suspect the problems Erik is pointing out occured because bit.all
started out to solve one problem and grew, and perhaps because the
gateway people are not old USENET hands.
> It is time for me to throw down the gauntlet - I'd like you all to
> stop distributing the bit.* newsgroups. Here's why:
We should -*<NOT>*- stop distributing the bit.all newsgroups while the
problems are being fixed. Users are benefiting from what we have now,
and we shouldn't arbitarily cut them off. If we want to ask further
sites to carefully consider not joining the bit distribution until the
problems are resolved, that's ok.
> 1. they have bad names - we went through considerable pains years
> ago to set up a reasonable hierarchical name space. The names
> they're choosing are very poor by comparison. It is long past the
> time that the LISTSERV based mailing lists should have been
> integrated into the standard 7 top level name space, with mail/news
> gateways.
The names chosen are the same as the list name on BITNET. This means
8 characters or less. This does result in losing names relative to
USENET practice.
It's my understanding that bit.listserv.all (all of bit.all except
bit.general (the hierarchies' news.admin)) was originally set up to
let BITNET system administrators have the better user interfaces of
netnews readers to more efficiently handle their daily list
consumption. This is the reason they were gotten into BU (and to save
me some time, the IBM staff wanted me to gate more and more LISTSERV
lists into our local mailing list newsgroup tree).
Re-naming these groups away from their listserv names is a dis-service
to the BITNET part of our readership (but read on). It also spreads
them over the namespace, so it be harder for an IBMer to find them
all.
It's also possible that some LISTSERV lists will not want to be in the
USENET mainstream hierarchies. For example, info-nets@think.com is
gated to LISTSERV INFONETS@BITNIC, and info-nets did not wish to join
the USENET mainstream when the inet distribution was set up.
There should defintely remain a bit distribution used as inet is now.
(Hmm, will spaf issue 4 checkgroup messages?)
> 2. there should not be a bit.* for the same reasons that there
> should not be a .bitnet top level domain name. USENET is a topic
> oriented, information network that spans many transports. It should
> not have transport specific names for its topics except as the
> topics in question related to the maintenance of that transport
> system (i.e. I have no objection to an "inet.operations" that is
> about operational problems of the Internet, I just don't want
> anything *else* to be inet.*).
bit.all is less a transport name, than a community of people on IBM systems
often talking about IBM system issues (though they are lists that are
of general interest).
I'm not convinced that totally closing down bit.all is a good idea.
The IBMers are going to be living with LISTSERV and the constrained
environment it lives in for a long time yet. At the least there
should be a cutover period of many months. Also, many of the LISTSERV
lists are not of interest to most of USENET being concerned with
technical details of IBM systems (much like the vmsnet, unix-pc and
u3b alternative hierarchies).
> 3. Many of the LISTSERV groups duplicate Internet mailing lists and
> USENET newsgroups, and therefore have messages with the same
> message-IDs transiting them as their USENET counterparts. This will
> lead to problems in distributing the USENET newsgroups, because
> you'll have <1234@foo.bar> in bit.listserv.barf, and comp.barf.
> Only one of them will get that message - and it will depend on
> which one arrives first. Very Bad Stuff, Folks.
Agreed, duplicate gateways into different newsgroups is the one thing
about the present situation that is Evil! {-! And it's the first
thing we should get fixed.
A solution is to have the gateway site cross post in a single article
to both a bit.listserv group and a better named newsgroup in the
USENET mainstream hierarchies. The extra inodes, bytes and processing
time are not a large issue compared to user dis-convienence. Later
on, as desired, some/many of the bit.listserv.all newsgroups can be
deleted and the mainstream newsgroup used.
Another solution is to leave things as they are, except to cross post
where the USENET mainstream and bit.listserv.all both want the group.
Suggestions:
* Give PSUVM.BITNET a chance to offer to fix this problem, before we
hunt for a new gateway.
* Erik should move the BITNET lists gated at ucbvax to which ever
BITNET site takes this duty on.
* There are quite a few bit.listserv.all groups that have USENET
newsgroup and/or internet mailing list equivalents, but are not gated.
The gateway site could offer to join them, when all sides are willing.
BITNET does have a LISTSERV for announcing new LISTSERVs making this
easier to do as an on-going activity.
* The gateway site should definitley get the address in headers right.
At least: FOO%SITE.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu .
===========
Let me take the devils advocate position for a moment ...
The stand you are taking is like:
> The stuff you've spent n years developing and tuning
> for the needs and limitations of your environment
> are totally worthless. You should throw away all of
> that hard work and user training and join us in this
> bright wonderful new world of Usenet.
Yes it would be nice if they did things like we did. In the same vein,
It would be nice if the UUCP world would stop worrying their silly
heads over routing issues and just do it "right". Same problem,
there's a difference in how a couple of communities are doing things
and they're trying to do their things in concert. But they have lots
of inertia behind doing things in some particular way -- changing the
usage pattern of hundreds of thousands of users is very hard to do.
We won't get BITNET to embrace Usenet software and techniques of
communication if we're looking down our collective noses on their
previous efforts.
Let me suggest a more middle road position which might require
more work than somebody's willing to put in
Let them have a bit.all hierarchy. For one thing "we"
cannot stop them from having one. For another thing it
would allow those sites, who are leery of throwing hundreds
of megs of disk storage at some strange thing those silly
Unix people run, to join Usenet at a lower cost.
Investigate which of the current bit.listserv things are
actually redistributions of existing Usenet things. Gateway
those properly. Also you will come across some with the
same topic base as existing Usenet things -- gateway these
as well. One I know of is "AMIGA-L" which could stand
to become an appendage of comp.sys.amiga.
Can the gatewaying be done in/out of multiple groups? This
was an idea I had during alt.sca -> rec.org.sca which might've
appeased Matt. I see a (possibly) solvable problem right
off. Articles originating on Usenet will, with current software,
be in one or the other group -- how to get the article into
both the other half of the newsgroup and also get it to
the mailing list. ----er---- if I could wish for a new software
feature right now it'd be "paired" newsgroups ...
Paired newsgroup: This would be a way to have an arriving article which
is in one newsgroup to be automagically cross-posted into another newsgroup.
There'd be a file, call it "pairs", like so
comp.sys.amiga bit.listserv.amiga-l
news.bitnet bit.general
... ...
This would allow each site to extract out certain subsets of the newsgroup
space into another hierarchy which would have meaning local to particular
site.
And if there were a way of coordinating the pairings then bit.all could
be bit.all and *also* in the "mainstream".
Sorry .. I got off on a tangent ...
Basically I feel you're taking a slightly extreme stance and might want
to tone it down a bit. I understand and agree with where you're coming
from but politically it might be better to do otherwise ..
===========
Perhaps I missing something, but why do we care if we move the name of
the BITNET-gatewayed usenet groups away from their LISTSERV names? If
someone is in the IBM world, they'll have to use the LISTSERV names,
without any questions.
If an IBM person has managed to get access to a real system (I don't
consider a system which is based on the emulation of punched cards real,
but let's not start that flame war....) which happens to have Netnews,
why not introduce him/her to the entire gamut of newsgroups --- among
which are the BITNET gatewayed groups.
I guess my main puzzlement is why the arguments which people are
advancing in favor of a bit.all not apply towards having an inet.all.
I haven't noticed any problems with having the inet groups distributed
amongst the mainline hierarchies. Why should bit.all be any different?
===========
Point a: Distributions were hacked in after the fact and don't work
that well in practice. As a concept, it's hard to understand. It
doesn't help that the Distribution: field of many messages are
downright "broken."
Point b: The listserv name <-> newsgroup name translation should not
involve any lookup tables; otherwise, you'll turn away people wanting
to convert from BITNET e-mail to news reading.
Both point "a" or point "b" imply that bit.* should be in its own
chunk of the hierarchy, like gnu.* or vmsnet.*. In my opinion, the
name should reflect, in some sense, the "administrative domain" the
groups are affiliated with; anything else leads to chaos.
===========
OK, some clarifications:
1. I do not wish to stop BITNET from having a bit.* heirarchy and
having it contain anything that they want.
2. I *do* wish to stop the propagation of bit.* OUTSIDE of BITNET,
unless it meets some constraints; primarily these constraints are to
prevent interoperability problems.
3. I recognize that there is much of value being discussed in the
LISTSERV forums, even if the packaging leaves something to be desired.
It is my end goal to see these discussions at least in properly named
inet groups, and preferably in standard USENET groups, available to
any interested party.
4. Since NNTP-Managers is about a protocol used (among other things)
for moving news over the Internet, I presumed that my audience was
administrators of Internet USENET sites; these arguments, except as
further propagated by you all to other interested parties, are not
reaching BITNET-only USENET sites (I know that there are some dual
membership sites), so I wasn't exhorting BITNET sites to "throw away
years of work" on my say so.
What the BITNET people should realize, however, is that to the extent
that they import Internet mailing lists into LISTSERV forums that then
become bit.* newsgroups, they will not be able to properly receive the
USENET/inet equivalent newsgroups, because of Message-ID conflicts.
When the bit.* newsgroups are exported outside BITNET, this problem
spreads. I have been seeing many of my netnews neighbors begin carrying
bit.* and I'm trying to nip this problem in the bud.
Netnews is a powerful, ennabling technology. I hope that the BITNET
people make good use of it. If they run a netnews distribution network
in isolation, they can do whatever they want with it. Just like running
your own private IP network that isn't connected to the Internet.
However, when they want to exchange with the rest of us, we *must*
agree on the newsgroup names (particularly those gatewayed to other
distribution systems, like Internet mailing lists), in advance.
Otherwise, we end up with a mess, and the system as a whole stops
working.
===========
If the Bitnet sites expect their users to now use newsreader
interfaces to read the bit groups, then they can have them learn a new
naming scheme at the same time. If Bitnet II can go TCP, then surely
the users can learn a new naming scheme.
===========
There are several reasons why moving groups from bit.listserv.* in the
mainstream 7 is a bad idea:
* A goodly number of the bit.all newsgroups are not of
interest to most of USENET and shouldn't get world distribution.
* Users are use to the bit.all and LISTSERV namespaces. This
wasn't the case when inet was set up. There was a clean slate, and no
one lost their mailing list access, they were just seduced over to the
inet newsgroups.
(Note, I'm always leery of arguments from administrators about
things that make their lives easier and users lives harder, though
that isn't the case here, yet).
* USENET news is read under CMS (and maybe other IBM O/S's).
I've seen little comment about having the gateway crosspost to both
bit.all and the mainstream 7, for those groups that are appropriate.
Seems the best solution to me.
===========
... What do we get to do to enforce our ideas of
"what is right"? Simply put, the same as any other administrator. By
a concerted statement by the NNTP-managers that bit.* newsgroups will
not be distributed, under such names, but, for the Internet/Usenet
community, will be available under other names, we solve the problem.
This does not limit what BITnet sites choose to call their groups, the
only important thing is that the gateway software functions properly.
Should there be griping and complaining, we have a ready answer: the
Message-Id problem. While this is the least of the problems caused by
the current situation, it is an undeniable result of the current chaos.
As for the more general proliferation of top-level namespaces, I am
heartened to see that, with the exception of bit.*, they all seem to
fit the original idea of the "big 7". They all are topic-related, not
trasport-related. Unmvax has alt, bionet, biz, ddn, gnu, pubnet, u3b,
unix-pc, and usrgroup (defunct). And then bit.* messes things up.
These are all hierarchies to discuss issues of a particular nature,
not just forums classified by transport apparatus of origin. Alt is a
possible exception; regard it as groups not supported by a sufficient
number of people to warrant transfer as a "standard group". The other
hierarchies are similar as well. There isn't really any problem with
proliferation. Except for bit.*, there is a real reason behind the
separation of each of these. Limited interest (alt, bionet, u3b,
unix-pc, usrgroup), legal questions (biz, alt), and centralized
control (gnu, bionet) are all common reasons for such separate
hierarchies. But such reasons are naturally related to the subject
matter. I don't see a reason to discourage that sort of thing when
necessary. But creating top-level hierarchies (*) which don't fit
into the scheme is, simply put, a big mistake, pointing us back to the
days of net.* and mod.*.
(*) For purposes of this discussion, we should regard bit.* as a new
top-level hierarchy. They *are* new to the Internet/Usenet world, and
that is the question. We can leave Bitnet to do what it will; there
is no need for us to force the issue on them; I am simply suggesting
that we *do* try to keep the Internet/Usenet world clean and simple.
===========
> * A goodly number of the bit.all newsgroups are not of
> interest to most of USENET and shouldn't get world distribution.
This is based on the presumption that top level hierarchies are also
distributions; which is exactly what I would argue against.
> * Users are use to the bit.all and LISTSERV namespaces. This
> wasn't the case when inet was set up. There was a clean slate, and no
> one lost their mailing list access, they were just seduced over to the
> inet newsgroups.
Ever hear of the great renaming? Better that the names should have
started out where they are now, but they didn't.
===========
Regarding the bit.* groups, I have a few questions that I hope someone
can answer.
- Do these already exist somewhere as USENET groups? Is it a full set
of the LISTSERV groups, or only a subset?
- How many groups are we talking about? Tens or hundreds?
- I agree that it would be better to integrate them into the regular
USENET hierarchy, and set up bidirectional feeds if the BITNET people
agree to this. Some of the LISTSERV groups probably already overlap
with existing USENET groups. Has anyone looked to see how many
could be fed into an existing group, and how many would be new groups?
===========
> If that's the case for most (or all) of you, I would suggest to gateway
> all those groups into one single USENET group (e.g. misc.listserv), or
> perhaps a VERY FEW subgroups thereof where really necessary.
AcK! One single USENET group for all of the bit.listserv groups would
be very bad. The wide range of topics and the traffic they carry
would be completely unreasonable for one group. Much like making
"general" the only group, world distribution.
===========
Not sure what I can add to this discussion.
1. The bit.all groups were created to help the few IBM sites that run
NETNEWS cut down on some of their spool traffic.
2. Many of us would rather read these lists from a server than from our
own mailbox.
3. I'm surprised other sites are even seeing this traffic. I thought
newsgroups were only exchanged with consenting machines. I guess many
will accept ALL newsgroups. Our implementation will only keep first
level groups that we have previously defined although any lower level
group will be kept automatically.
4. What alternatives are being suggested here. There are over 1000 of
these mailing lists and various sites are porting their favorite ones
into their local systems.
5. We have a number of other local prefixes (staff., psu.) that aren't
being broadcast beyond their appropriate boundaries. Don't know why
the BIT. should behave any differently. Staff stays on PSUVM and
PSU gets sent to other UNIX and VMS machines on campus that run the
"real" usenet software.Edward Vielmetti <emv@MATH.LSA.UMICH.EDU> (02/13/90)
Ah, I was waiting for this discussion to come up. I'm happy to get all of the bit.* groups, subject to the constraint that the Message-ID: information *must* but properly handled at all of the gateway points. The consequences of doing this wrong are disruption of service either on bit.* groups or in comp.* groups depending on what gets where first. Another problem with the gatewaying as it's set up now is that there doesn't seem to be a current list of all of the bit groups, information on them, and where messages to the group need to be sent to. This is a particular problem because the groups are marked as moderated on the news side & so articles get mailed off to the usenet "backbone" by default -- a backbone that doesn't know how to deal with them. --Ed Edward Vielmetti, U of Michigan math dept.
Irwin Tillman <IRWIN%PUCC.bitnet@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> (02/13/90)
Thanks for your edit/repost of the discussion in nntp-managers, Linda. Perhaps it would helpful to go back to the original reasoning behind the selection of the groupnames. I was involved in that discussion; it took place in NETNWS-L and LSTSRV-L during the last week of 9/87 and the first week or so of 10/87. The NOTEBOOKs for those two months should be available from Listserv.
Chris Wooff <QQ43@LIVERPOOL.AC.UK> (02/13/90)
I'd certainly be unhappy if we were unable to receive the bit.* groups. One of the reasons for getting Netnews was to make it simpler and more efficient for our users to access the information on those LISTSERV lists. However, I do appreciate that the Message-Id: duplication ought not to take place.
Linda Littleton <LRL%PSUVM.bitnet@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> (02/13/90)
In article <9002130032.AA13943@nuby.math.lsa.umich.edu>, Edward Vielmetti <emv@MATH.LSA.UMICH.EDU> says: >... the Message-ID: information *must* but properly handled at all of >the gateway points. Please elaborate. What would "proper handling" entail? You're talking about situations of crosspostings to a bit group and some other (non-moderated) group? Question: If someone crossposts to bit.a and comp.b and the posting gets sent as email to the moderator of bit.a with a "Newsgroups: bit.a,comp.b" line, will Listserv preserve that line? If so, then the article would hit Netnews just once and get added to both groups at the same time. >Another problem with the gatewaying as it's set up now is that >there doesn't seem to be a current list of all of the bit groups, >information on them, and where messages to the group need to be >sent to. I have a such a list. It is available from LISTSERV at PSUVM with GET NETNEWS MODERATO and GET NETNEWS DESCRIBE. I could post a checkgroups if that would help. I don't see anything in the RFC on how moderators should be listed in the checkgroups, though.
David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <david@MS.UKY.EDU> (02/13/90)
>> == Ed Vielmetti (sp?) > == Laura Littleton <lrl@psuvm.psu.edu> > >Another problem with the gatewaying as it's set up now is that > >there doesn't seem to be a current list of all of the bit groups, > >information on them, and where messages to the group need to be > >sent to. > > I have a such a list. It is available from LISTSERV at PSUVM with > GET NETNEWS MODERATO and GET NETNEWS DESCRIBE. I could post a checkgroups > if that would help. I don't see anything in the RFC on how moderators > should be listed in the checkgroups, though. NNTP-people ... the NETNWS-L people have started talking about gatewaying problems 'tween "us" and "them" because Erik contacted Laura recently. Part of the problem with the co-existance of Usenet & the bit.all sub-culture is that a lot of the Usenet practices simply are not documented in the RFC. Instead they are passed around `verbally'. Other pieces of the arcane lore of running Usenet are in Gene's Postings which appear in various news.all groups. But then the bit.all people have their own practices which aren't well enough advertised ... I suggest more interaction between the two groups. Neither group fully understands what the other does .. I wish I had more time to help improve the understanding on each side of the fence but I just don't. BTW, Laura, "handling a Message-ID: properly" means ****NO**** mangling of the contents and DO ****NOT**** lose the contents You should treat the Message-ID: as a *string* whose contents are inviolate and uninterpreted. Pass the Message-ID: along in any instance of the message you are handling. Use it as a "key" for finding the message in a database. Use it however you like. But do not do anything to the contents -- that string is what should be used to uniquely identify **THAT** message, if it were changed or lost then that message is **NO**LONGER** identifiable as being itself. -- <- David Herron; an MMDF guy <david@ms.uky.edu> <- ska: David le casse\*' {rutgers,uunet}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET <- Coming to a nameserver near you --SOON--: david@davids.mmdf.com <- (until then, david%davids.mmdf.com@rutgers.edu will work) -- <- David Herron; an MMDF guy <david@ms.uky.edu> <- ska: David le casse\*' {rutgers,uunet}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET <- Coming to a nameserver near you --SOON--: david@davids.mmdf.com <- (until then, david%davids.mmdf.com@rutgers.edu will work)
Linda Littleton <LRL@PSUVM.PSU.EDU> (02/13/90)
David Herron -- NonResident E-Mail Hack <david@MS.UKY.EDU> wrote: >NNTP-people ... the NETNWS-L people have started talking about gatewaying >problems 'tween "us" and "them" because Erik contacted Laura recently. My name is Linda and I haven't heard anything from Erik. I wrote to him just a few days ago. Also have been waiting about a week to be added to nntp-managers list with no success. I might as well repeat here what I wrote to Erik. We need to get the people on our two lists talking to each other. Here is what I wrote him: >As the person who is largely responsible for Listserv discussions >being fed to Netnews, I am quite surprised to learn that there is >discussion and controversy over the bit groups. A system administrator >on one of our local systems sent me some nntp managers discussion >dated between 11/25/89 and 12/6/89, and I read it with somewhat of >the feeling of catching people talking about me behind my back. > >Anyhow, let me introduce myself. I've written a VM/CMS implementation >of Netnews that can receive feeds either over Bitnet or via NNTP. >The NNTP part was written by Andy Hooper - HOOPER@QUCDN.bitnet. My >implementation replaces the one by Bill Verity (WHV@psuvm.psu.edu). >The Netnews code allows any site running it to gateway a Listserv list >into Netnews, although most of the gatewaying (125 groups or so) is >done by psuvm. The return Netnews-to-Listserv gateway is done by >setting up each bit group as moderated, and the posting software >sends the posting directly to the moderator, which is just a list >handler. > >I am surprised to hear that non-IBM sites are receiving and are >interested in the bit groups. I had thought that they were just >being circulated among IBM bitnet sites. I don't know why non-IBM >folks would even be interested in much of the stuff there. > >I wasn't involved in original decisions about group naming, but >imagine a new hierarchy (bit) was picked to indicate that these were >something separate that should just be circulated among bitnet sites. >Personally I think the bit.listserv is excessive and would rather >see a prefix like "lsv". > >It is important to the bitnet sites to have the Listserv list name >be in the Netnews group name. Otherwise it would be difficult to >know where each list was being gatewayed. Many VM sites are trying >to encourage their users to read these lists via Netnews rather than >Listserv to cut down on the amount of mail space used for this stuff. > >Our Netnews implementation just hit the VM "market" and from the looks >of things it is going to take off. About 5 sites per day have been >requesting the software. Many of them are initially attracted by >bit.all capabilities, but most get a Usenet feed too. Since each >site has the ability to gateway whatever Listserv lists they want, >I believe we are going to see a big increase there. > >I am very willing to work with you on this. Gatewaying the Listserv >lists to Usenet groups is a current capability (for example, we put >the minix-l list into comp.os.minix), though it can be confusing for >bitnet people to know what's what. Hmm, maybe I could get our news >reading software to handle that. All sorts of things are possible. > >Let's talk. Back to David: >I suggest more interaction between the two groups. Neither group >fully understands what the other does .. I wish I had more time to help >improve the understanding on each side of the fence but I just don't. It's even more complicated than that. I understand what PSU VM Netnews does. I don't know what PUCC VM Netnews does and don't know all that much about Listserv. >BTW, Laura, "handling a Message-ID: properly" means > ****NO**** mangling of the contents >and DO ****NOT**** lose the contents PSU Netnews does not mangle message-ids. If an incoming article has a message-id, that message-id is left intact. If it does not have a message-id, then, if the article is mail from a Listserv list, a message-id is created from the "From" and "Date" lines of the article (so that any place running PSU Netnews would create the same msgid); if it is not Listserv mail, the article is rejected.
Brain in Neutral <bin@primate.wisc.edu> (02/13/90)
>From article <9002130032.AA13943@nuby.math.lsa.umich.edu>, by emv@MATH.LSA.UMICH > Another problem with the gatewaying as it's set up now is that > there doesn't seem to be a current list of all of the bit groups, > information on them, and where messages to the group need to be > sent to. This is a particular problem because the groups are > marked as moderated on the news side & so articles get mailed > off to the usenet "backbone" by default -- a backbone that doesn't > know how to deal with them. Usenet sites should have the following in their "mailpaths" file: bit.all %s@cs.psu.edu Paul DuBois Internet: dubois@primate.wisc.edu UUCP: rhesus!dubois FAX: 608/263-4031
Linda Littleton <LRL@PSUVM.PSU.EDU> (02/20/90)
tower@bu-it.bu.edu (Leonard H. Tower Jr.) wrote: >(about bit.listserv.* groups being gated to Usenet groups) >If the Message-Id:'s are the same in each newsgroup (generally the >case), the traffic is split between the two groups (that is, each >messaeg ends up in only one of the groups). This is very confusing to >users who wonder about the missing messages. >When the Message-Id:'s are not the same in each group, the sites >getting both groups get twice the traffic wasting network bandwidth, >cpu and disk space. >Have the gateways involved cross post once to both the bit.listserv >name and the mainstream name. For example: > Newsgroups: bit.listserv.asm370,comp.lang.asm370 > Followup-To: bit.listserv.asm370,comp.lang.asm370 > (The Followup line is needed to avoid some Followup's being sent to >only one group (some news readers/posters do this). Agreed. This is the way to go. Our software cannot handle this currently, but could be changed. >The people at the nntp managers BOF at USENIX liked this solution, and >ask Erik to contact Bill Verity and work at: > - getting the gateway software modified to do this. Either >ucbvax's or the bitnet or both. I will modify ours. > - arranging who gates which mailing lists. Good idea. Let me know which ones to turn off. >There have recently been almost a dozen new bit.listserv.all groups >created by JIM@AUVM.BITNET. Will psuvax1.cs.psu.edu handle the >forwarding for these properly? Anyone using our software and adding groups has been asked to post the info to bit.listserv.netnws-l. From there, I pick it up and add it to a list here, which eventually goes out in a checkgroups.
Irwin Tillman <IRWIN@PUCC.bitnet> (02/20/90)
On Tue, 20 Feb 90 11:52:00 EST Linda Littleton said: >>Have the gateways involved cross post once to both the bit.listserv >>name and the mainstream name. For example: >> Newsgroups: bit.listserv.asm370,comp.lang.asm370 >> Followup-To: bit.listserv.asm370,comp.lang.asm370 >> (The Followup line is needed to avoid some Followup's being sent to >>only one group (some news readers/posters do this). > >Agreed. This is the way to go. Our software cannot handle this currently, >but could be changed. > >>The people at the nntp managers BOF at USENIX liked this solution, and >>ask Erik to contact Bill Verity and work at: >> - getting the gateway software modified to do this. Either >>ucbvax's or the bitnet or both. > >I will modify ours. I suspect that some of this can be accomplished without any code mods. I *think* that in a Listserv list definition, you can specify a number of newsgroups as arguments to the Newsgroups keyword. E.g. Newsgroups=bit.listserv.asm370, comp.lang.asm370 When Listserv receives mail for that list, it creates a Newsgroups header for the outgoing mail using the value of the Newsgroups keyword in the list definition. If the mail already has a Newsgroups header, the existing header is preserved, and the additional groups specified in the list definition are added to the header (unless they duplicate what is already in the header). I am not positive about specifying multiple newsgroups to the Newsgroups keyword; I don't believe that keyword has made it into the Listserv doc yet. Perhaps someone more familiar with Listserv can double-check this. If my understanding is correct, this would provide a way to simplify the crossposting. Of course, you'd still need to create the Followup-To header if you feel that header is appropriate.