NAMELIST vs. bsd f77 - the battle continues

[John G Dobnick,EMS E380,4142295727,]

[This is crossposted to comp.lang.fortran and comp.unix.questions in hopes
of finding someone who knows what's happening here.  If there is a better
place for this, please let me know -- these two groups seem reasonable.]

Some of our users here have large FORTRAN codes that they wish to run
on a Unix based system.  (A tahoe running 4.3-tahoe bsd, to be specific.)
These codes make significant use of NAMELIST for entering data -- significant
to the extent that lack of the NAMELIST facility means a major rewrite.

The manuals and documents for the f77 compiler discuss the NAMELIST feature,
leading one to believe the compiler supports it.  However, the compiler
does *not* recognize NAMELIST.  Examination of the compiler reveals why the
parser does not recognize NAMELIST -- that particular code is specifically
turned off.  As far as I can tell from a cursory examination, the remainder
of f77 implements NAMELIST.

Does anyone know why this is turned off?  

Will something "break" if we re-enable that portion of the parser?

[I have reported this as a bug to Berkeley via their "sendbug" mechanism
about two months ago.  At the risk of sounding pushy and ungrateful, I note
that I have not received any feedback as yet.  Is there another channel I
should use for f77 problems?]
-- 
John G Dobnick
Computing Services Division @ University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
INTERNET: jgd at csd4.milw.wisc.edu
UUCP: <backbone>!uwvax!uwmcsd1!jgd

"Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation,
and is thus a source of civilized delight."  -- William Safire
--
-- 
John G Dobnick
Computing Services Division @ University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
INTERNET: jgd at csd4.milw.wisc.edu