From: bobk@dogear.spk.wa.us (Bob Kirkpatrick) Subject: Re: uucp/mail/news FAQ [long] Date: 7 Nov 1992 16:33:37 GMT
Re: newspak and including binaries in packages (SLS, MCC) versus
keeping them in source format.
There is an inherent problem with things like cnews, smail, and
to a lesser extent, the various newsreaders. That is, that unix
systems aren't exactly alike.
Some of the readers could be sent out as binaries, using the
'hostname' feature to identify the sites it's installed on. But
the more intricate applications, like cnews and smail would be
at the very least, problematic.
To clamp these down woild limit the ability of the admins to
put many things where they want them, and likely require that
they didn't make any big changes --like changing uucp types or
where they spool from, etc. Smail has a number of things that
are highly system specific, and to be able to come up with the
exact config/routers/transports/directors file to fit various
sites would be a pretty nasty undertaking. Any resolve would
pin down the package user to an unchangable tree --at minimum.
If some tweaking did allow these to be included in a package,
would that imply support by the package collator to assist the
confused in making it work with the highly differing systems?
---
Bob Kirkpatrick <bobk@dogear.spk.wa.us>
Dog Ear'd Systems of Spokane, WA