Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 (MU) 9/23/84; site munnari.OZ
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!mulga!munnari!kre
From: kre@munnari.OZ (Robert Elz)
Newsgroups: net.news.b
Subject: Re: distribution naming problem in B 2.10.2
Message-ID: <616@munnari.OZ>
Date: Tue, 25-Dec-84 05:54:50 EST
Article-I.D.: munnari.616
Posted: Tue Dec 25 05:54:50 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Dec-84 04:18:41 EST
References: <368@watcgl.UUCP> <77@daemon.UUCP> <465@watcgl.UUCP> <97@daemon.UUCP> <824@ru-cs44.UUCP> <609@munnari.OZ> <2033@Glacier.ARPA>
Reply-To: kre@munnari.OZ (Robert Elz)
Organization: Comp Sci, Melbourne Uni, Australia
Lines: 68

(The original was posted to net.sources.bugs as well as
net.news.b - this is not a bug, bug report or fix, so I
have deleted that group from Newsgroups line).

In article <2033@Glacier.ARPA> Brian Reid (reid@Glacier.ARPA) writes:
| 
| Pardon me for butting in, but isn't this just an aliasing problem, in the
| programming languages sense of the word? The identifier "net" is overloaded;
| it is used both as a distribution and as a top-level group name.

You are right.

|								   If people
| just change to use the distribution "world" instead of "net", this problem
| will be solved, will it not?

Yes, that would solve the problem, but how do we get people to
change?  "net" has been the world wide distribution for quite
a while now, everything says that's what it is, that's
what people use (and its what 2.10.2 uses, and people are running
that, its almost impossible to undo it).

Note, 2.10.2 has fixed the problem, if everyone would convert to
that, then this would be a non-issue.  Its the earlier systems
that do decidedly improper things with Distribution lines that
cause trouble.  (At least, with current usage of Distribution
what they do is improper.  From looking at the code, I suspect
that Distributions have grown to a usage that is not quite the
same as that which was originally planned).

The change I suggested to 2.10.2 was merely to help to placate
the earlier systems, it wouldn't be needed if everyone was
running 2.10.2.  I suggested that in the expectation that those
people running 2.10.2 were people interested in keeping their
systems up to scratch, and most often, it is articles originating
at those sites that we lose.  People still running earlier systems
have already demonstrated some reluctance (justified or otherwise)
to change - getting them to fix things is a little harder.

Note: I am not advocating that anyone switch to 2.10.2 now,
it has its problems too, and 2.10.3 is due in the relatively
near future.  That version should be worth installing though.

Also: it is possible to fix this (get round the problem) if
you're running 2.10.1 by changing your sys file for all
sites that you send limited newsgroups to by adding the
following incantation

	net,!net.all,

at the head of the distribution list for each remote system
that you send some "net" newsgroups to.  If you send limited
subgroups of any other group you should include a similar
incantation with that group name replacing "net" in the
above.

So, for example, at decvax, the sys file line for mulga should read...

	mulga:net,!net.all,net.unix-wizards,net.bugs,net.lan,...

Either that, or the fix I suggested in <609@munnari.OZ> should
be installed on all 2.10.1 sites that send anything less than
everything to any other site.

This is derived from the article by nsc!chuqui in net.news.adm
in the past day or so (though see my response to his article).

Robert Elz				decvax!mulga!kre