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From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: AT&T Long Distance Boycott (was: BNR2SS, Mach, and The Lawsuit)
Message-ID: <NQ3JI7G@taronga.com>
Date: 9 Sep 92 01:46:24 GMT
References: <1992Sep07.101851.2123@kithrup.COM> <QA2J6LM@taronga.com> <1992Sep08.085437.419@kithrup.COM>
Organization: Taronga Park BBS
Lines: 44
In article <1992Sep08.085437.419@kithrup.COM> sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) writes:
>In article <QA2J6LM@taronga.com> peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>>Sorry, if you have to provide your own termcap you're back where you started:
[silly "if you have to provide..." lines deleted]
>The termcap library is *SMALL*.
And it's (more importantly) standard. If it had to be provided by every
application it wouldn't be.
>It's better if it's on every system, but
>it's small enough that it can be provided as part of your application and
>not be terribly visible. Emacs does that, or did at one point (although
>emacs is not something I like using as an example).
Proof. Emacs uses its own terminal independence database. So does every
editor on CP/M, where Termcap isn't a standard. So you have to configure
every application independently. "Oh", you say "termcap is so standard
now nobody would ever do that". Not so. AT&T did.
THAT is the point of having, and providing, a standard set of interfaces.
POSIX wimped out on too much of the API, and what remains isn't enough.
>1. Pnews and Rnmail work quite well with 1003.2 utilities.
Mail isn't part of 1003.2.
>3. As for mail, tell you what, Peter: why don't you come up with a mail
>system (reader, sender, interface, system-to-system interface, file format,
>filesystem layout, etc.) that can work on all systems, and then I'll add the
>code to t?rn to support that.
I don't need to. It already exists. The name varies slightly (rmail/smail/
sendmail) but the *interface* is pretty much standard.
I don't know why you're taking this position, that basic things like
termcap and mail are optional. They're not.
--
`-_-'
Have you hugged your wolf today? 'U`
Peter da Silva, Taronga Park BBS, Houston, TX +1 713 568 0480/1032