🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi gang...

For more than a year now, myself and a few beta testers have been quietly
hacking away on Rick Adams' UUCP v4.2 code for the CoCo 3.  I feel the time is
right to release it to the OS-9 community.  Naturally, I wanted to see how
Rick felt about the idea since I doubted he wants to squash any of my bugs. :-)
  I also had some other ideas on expanding the project.  After discussing
this with Rick, he thought the ideas were worth trying.  Soooo...here goes...

First...I have made many updates to entire package.  A "Reader's Digest"
version of some of the improvements:

  o better error messages (I hope :-) ) and much more detailed logging file
  o mail, spool and user directories are user configurable
  o uucico now can do polls of multiple systems, retrying each if necessary
      better recovery from errors
  o mail can be read in forward or reverse order
      save messages with or without the header
      have a file uuencode and attached to the message if you wish
      forwarded a message
      as soon I get the code from Rick, there will be a mini-listserver
      mail is moving to be more like UNIX's mailx
  o individual messages are stored in a different way then with Rick's
      v4.2. A simple conversion utility will make the changeover relatively
      quick and easy.  (He said hopefully. :-) )
  o news software has been improved though it is still evolving
  o uuclean does a much better job
  o uulog to let you look through the log files
  o uuxqt has been updated
  o adduser to add new users to the system
  o installation program that I hope makes the task of getting UUCP going
      on the CoCo a lot less of a challenge
  o Thanks to Boisy, there is a patch to SCF which allows SCF devices to be
      non-shareable.  UUCP won't trash the CoCo if you are calling your
      local BBS when it tries to call out.
  o Also thanks to Boisy there is his MCRON, a multi-user version of CRON with
      a lot more flexibility.
  o Thanks to Brad Spencer, basic termcap is in mail and readnews.

I'm leaving other stuff out at the moment, but y'all the general idea...I've
been busy. :-)

[<click> soapbox mode enabled]

Second...some of the discussions here on the list during the passed few months
have me concerned.  I am worried that the OS-9 community is forgetting its
hacking roots.  (I mean hacking in the true sense of the word, not the
corruption the news media has turned it into.)  There seems to be a lot less
willingness in recent years to share sources and encourage others to improve
on it.  Generally, my feeling is that this is a Bad Thing (tm).  The CoCo is
already an orphaned computer.  Being protective with software hurts more than it
  helps.  I am *not* talking about software written to be sold.  I am talking ab
 out the freely shared programs we write.  "I don't send give out source only
executables" seems to be the prevailing attitude.  This, I think is sad
because it robs newcomers the opportunity to learn by example.  I learned a
lot about program in C by studying, playing with and modifying source to
Rick's and Mark Griffith's UUCP programs, by modifying Pete Lyall's port of X10
 and numerous other people's code.  I would have missed out on a lot of
learning without having the source to study.

[<click> soapbox mode off]

After discussing my ideas with Rick and getting his okay (thanks Rick!) this
is what I would like to do:  I feel my update of the UUCP package can be
improved upon.  I'm not a expert.  None of us have all the answers when it
comes to programming.  There is always someone who can come up with a better
way of doing what you did.  I feel the package and the OS-9 community could
benefit from turning it into a group project.  The UNIX world has such
projects.  Linux and 386BSD are two examples of what happens when a software
package becomes a net project.  What I propose to do is something along the
lines of Linux and 386BSD.

In order to avoid confusing Rick's UUCP v4.2 with my version, my package will be
  called UUCPbb.  The first official version will be v2.0.  Rick will retain
the right to use any improvements to the code which came from his originals
in any future updates he may do of v4.2.  This is only fair after all. :-)
I will be maintaining UUCPbb.  As I said before, I doubt Rick has the either
the time or desire to squash my bugs. :-)

Both Rick and I are concerned that someone down the road may be a "bad
programming citizen" to paraphrase the Free Software Foundation and claim
UUCPbb as their own.  To prevent this, UUCPbb will be not be made public
domain; rather it will be released under a GNU-type public license and
copyleft.  There will no restrictions on where you can upload it, you just
can't say it is yours or sell it.  We want to avoid a "Delphi-only" or
"Compuserve-only" type of situation.

Some might be concerned that there will be myriad copies popping up all over
the place.  Well this has not happened with either Linux or 386BSD.  There is
one central point to find the official copy.  Anything other then current
official version is on a "use-at-your-own-risk" basis.  The same will hold
true for UUCPbb; cabrales seems to be an ideal central point.  Not everyone on
the net has an account on Delphi and/or Compuserve.  Those on Delphi and CIS
can FTP stuff from cabrales.  Nobody will be intentionally left out from
contributing to the project.  The only folks who might have a problem are
those who are only on Fidonet.  I hope someone will volunteer to act as a
bridge from here to Fidonet to keep those folks uptodate.

If someone wants to write other software to be used with the UUCPbb, great!
In the spirit of the project, I would like to see the source also made
available.  You may or may not choose to release it with a GNU-type
license/copyleft.  For example, Jeff Shepler has modified his mailer, Palm, to
work with the new mail form.  Jeff distributes his sources.

This also applies to those of you who may have modified Rick's v4.2 package to
work with, say, RiBBS or some other BBS software.  I would like to hear from
these folks and encourage them to add their changes to UUCPbb.  Using
appropriate #ifdef's there is no reason all this can't be folded into one neat
package.  Heck, there is no reason it can't be run on any of the OSK boxes as we
 ll.

There is a minor problem which I would like suggestions on how to deal with
it.  Currently, UUCPbb is about 200K (.lzh).  It is going to be a bit
of a pain, to say the least, to require someone to download the entire package
again just to get a minor update.  We really need something along the lines of
the UNIX's diff utility for OS-9.  Jeff was starting to work on such a
program.  The work is temporarily on hold since Jeff's controller apparently got
  zapped recently.  If anyone wants to help Jeff out with this project,
contact him: r3jks@dax.cc.uakron.edu.

Until we have a better way of distributing *source* patches, I thought the
best way is to create an IPATCH file.  The IPATCH (or diff) file would
*always* be done against the current official version.  This way everyone will
stay in sync.  Making IPATCH files is slow and kind of ugly.  Anyone have some
better ideas?  I thought of just sending out the individual functions, but
this cut and paste approach is rather kludgy.  Patches will usually be
considered as "use-at-your-own-risk", unless they are bug fixes.

Finally...I would appreciate someone reposting this message on Compuserve,
Delphi and Fidonet.  I would like to see replies reposted here for the benefit
of all, if possible or send them directly to me.  Kind of hard to carry on a
group discussion with the CoCo/OS-9 community so widely scattered, but we can
try.

A friend of mine who is on Delphi, tells me that the OS-9 grapevine there says
I'm am writing a new OS-9 terminal program.  UUCP is *not* a terminal program.
Maybe those who do understand what UUCP all about can help those that don't. :-)

So what do y'all think of the ideas?  Please no flames, we don't need that.
Comment, questions, suggestions, other ideas are more than welcome.  Sorry for
being so long winded, but there was a lot of area to cover.

     Bob

oops...forgot the most important part! :-)  I'm trying real hard to get
everything ready to release in about two weeks; this would be about December 1
...barring visits from any gremlins or Murphy. :-)
--
  Bob Billson, KC2WZ                          | internet: bob@kc2wz.bubble.org
  $nail:  21 Bates Way,  Westfield, NJ 07090  | uucp:     ...!uunet!kc2wz!bob

               "Friends don't let friends run DOS" -- Microware