Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: C news compatibility (was Re: Patch dates or Patch Numbers)
Message-ID: <1989Aug19.215918.23481@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1989Aug9.164003.20669@utzoo.uucp> <6717@dayton.UUCP> <1989Aug18.102335.17269@utstat.uucp> <64125@uunet.UU.NET> <3536@epimass.EPI.COM>
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 89 21:59:18 GMT

In article <3536@epimass.EPI.COM> jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck) writes:
>... The RFC only describes article
>format and distribution and the meaning of header fields; it says
>nothing about sys file formats, active file formats, command line
>options, etc.  I thought the idea of C news was to make a small, fast,
>tight system that could be dropped in in place of B news with minimal
>changes.  There seem to be quite a few gratuitous changes, as you say.

Active file format is compatible, period.  Sys file format is compatible
with the exceptions of a few very obscure flags and ihave/sendme (which
almost didn't make it into C News at all).  Command line options are
compatible on all the things -- i.e., inews -- that users have any business
invoking.  The sysadmin interface *is* different; we don't feel we could
have avoided that.

We'd be interested to hear which changes you consider "gratuitous"; we did
make some effort to be incompatible only when there was a reason.

>It's not sufficient to meet the RFC to call yourself "backward compatible".

Well, yes and no.  There really are several different aspects of backward
compatibility involved here.  Interoperability we have got, 100% -- proof
by demonstration, i.e. all the C News sites out there interoperating with
B News sites.  User-level and newsreader-level compatibility we have also
definitely got, proof is trivial since most C News sites (including ours)
run user-interface software written for B News.  Sysadmin compatibility
we have not got -- 95% in file formats, less in commands -- but we feel
there were adequate reasons for that.
-- 
V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu