1003.2 Command Groups

[std-unix at ut-sally.UUCP]

From: ihnp4!alberta!ncc!lyndon (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: 15 Jan 87 21:26:58 GMT
Organization: Nexus Computing Corp.,  Edmonton, AB

> From: gwyn at brl.arpa (Douglas A. Gwyn)
> Date:     Thu, 8 Jan 87 11:32:58 EST
> Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
> 
> >From: hoptoad!gnu at lll-crg.arpa (John Gilmore)
> >...  Is it going to be possible to sell a
> >POSIX system without UUCP?  Ditto for "mail"...
> 
> I don't see why these should be mandated when many sites use
> superior facilities in their place.  Ditto for the spooler.

Given that UUCP is not considered part of the standard, each vendor would
be free to provide whatever software they desired. Is not the end result
of this going to be a vast number of systems, running a "standard" OS,
that will not be able to communicate with each other due to "non-standard"
communications software?

I don't disagree that the days of UUCP are numbered, however I am very
much in favor of maintaining communications compatibility between
existing and new systems. (Life is tough enough when two sites running
'g' protocol can't even talk to each other).

It would be nice if the standard actually *documented* the 'g' protocol,
and required vendors to support it (with the rising popularity of X.25,
perhaps 'f' protocol should be added as well). This would maintain the
backwards compatability necessary to keep existing networks functional,
something of primary importance to a large part of the Unix community.

It will take quite some time for the Unix community at large to adopt
a replacement for UUCP. If we simply drop UUCP from the standard, we
are inviting absolute anarchy!

Everyone who participates in this newsgroup influences (to some
degree) the thoughts of the committee. We do this via USENET, which
is brought to you through the (dubious) miracle of UUCP. Doesn't it
seem a bit silly to "unstandardize" the software that helped us
develop the standard... :-)

With Flame Catcher in hand,
-- 
Lyndon Nerenberg - Nexus Computing Corp. - lyndon at ncc.UUCP
UUCP: {ihnp4,ubc-vision,vax135,watmath}!alberta!ncc!lyndon

Volume-Number: Volume 9, Number 31