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)?