USENIX Board Studies UUCP

[Wm E Davidsen Jr]

In article <287 at usenix.UUCP>, ellie at usenix.UUCP (Ellie Young) writes:
|        o Talk at least a few other protocols; ideally, make it easy to add new
|          protocols through streams or dynamic linking.

  Given the diversity of non-unix environments, I would suggest looking
closely at the idea of a flexible and easily configured scheme, such as
having a clear text file with the name of the protocol and the path of
the program to run it. The program could be started with stdin and
stdout pointing to the comm device, and stderr to the error log (or a
pipe back to the parent).

  Note that I'm not suggesting this as the best or only way to do it,
just that there be a way in which user written protocol modules may be
inserted without compilation and linking, and that the mechanism be
portable to at least {BSD,USG} unix, VMS, and MS-DOS.

|        o Be robust enough that the hackings of cretins not disrupt the network,
|          and produce clear error messages.

  Having the hacking of cretins produce clear error messages is a might task!

|        o How do we distribute the final product?  On what terms?

  If this is to be a success I think giving it away is the only
reasonable choice. If it is truely better vendors and standards groups
will adopt it, but having it free would prevent the situation with
current uucp, in which there are a large number of reimplementations
from various sources, with various levels of compatibility and
reliability.

|  
|        o If distributed in source form, how do we keep people from ``improv-
|          ing'' it into incompatibility or worse?

  You can't, and shouldn't. Define the license such that anyone
distributing a modified version would be required to distribute the
original with it (physical distribution) or make it available
(electronic distribution). If a small group of people releases updated
or enhanced versions a few times a year people will tend to send changes
back to the official version. This works well for a lot of existing net
software. 
|  
|        o Is this really the way we should be spending our money?

  On distribution, sure. Even on lobbying OSF and UI to adopt it. I
think you will be able to get people to offer their services to do the
design, creation and maintainence. I would certainly like a chance to
review the administrative interface before code got written, and I'm
sure a lot of other sysadms would too.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen at crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon