Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!utstat!geoff
From: geoff@utstat.uucp (Geoff Collyer)
Subject: C news compatibility (was Re: Patch dates or Patch Numbers)
Message-ID: <1989Aug18.102335.17269@utstat.uucp>
Organization: Statistics, U. of Toronto
References: <1989Aug9.164003.20669@utzoo.uucp> <6717@dayton.UUCP> <1989Aug17.171000.23302@utzoo.uucp> <64033@uunet.UU.NET>
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 89 10:23:35 GMT

Rick Adams:
>Cnews [sic] is another transport system (just like notes is). it may be
>better or worse, but it clearly paid no attention to backwards
>compatibility.

Nonsense.  C news meets the specification for message format in RFC
1036 and provides a compatible interface to the newsreaders (e.g. the
active file, stored articles and silly options to inews); our sys file
is compatible with the B 2.11 one except for a few obsolete options for
multicasting (see our batcher) and unbatched ihave/sendme.  News
administration differs somewhat from B news, but the C news rules are
documented and easy to learn.  We exchange news with B news sites and
have run vanilla news readers like readnews, rn and nn locally.
-- 
Geoff Collyer		utzoo!utstat!geoff, geoff@utstat.toronto.edu