From: utzoo!decvax!pur-ee!davy
Newsgroups: net.news.b
Title: Re: full names in news 2.7 - (nf)
Article-I.D.: pur-ee.349
Posted: Thu Jun 10 01:01:34 1982
Received: Thu Jun 10 05:24:32 1982

#R:cbosgd:-234400:pur-ee:7300001:000:1868
pur-ee!davy    Jun 10 00:46:00 1982


I can think of numerous reasons *not* to change the password file,
for one thing, ours is 4300 lines long, all in the format

		:LastName, FirstName; Classification:

with possibly some other stuff stuck onto the end of that.  Now, of
course, yours may not be this way.  You may have something like:

		:Class, Priority, Name, Office, Age, IQ, Marital Status:

or any number of other patterns.  Now, how many people have "automated"
account installation (i.e., a program that does it for you)?  We do,
so we'd have to change that, we'd have to change at least two other
programs I can think of also.

Now, frankly, how many of the administrative types are honestly going
to pay some clown to sit down and re-do the whole password file (or
write a program to do it), change all the other programs, re-do any
documentation, etc., all for one program, in particular, netnews?

I seem to remember a lot of people saying that they were having enough
troubles as it is keeping management interested, without things that
cost extra money.

I really don't think that the Berkeley "standard" should be relied on
for something as site-independent as a password file (our password 
file was this way before we even ran Berkeley UNIX).  Instead, the 
routine should be written, with explicit instructions on how to change
it to fit your site.  (I note that Mark has done that to some extent).

I don't mean to sound as critical as I do in this note, however, I
think in the future this will have to be watched for, at least until
some standard *is* written for storage of password files.  I hope I
haven't offended the authors......I mean it as constructive criticism
rather than creative bitching.

--Dave Curry
decvax!pur-ee!davy

P.S. - Just out of curiosity, does the ARPAnet have a standard for such
       a thing?  Is it part of the RFC7533 (or whatever that number is)?