🚀 go-pugleaf

I feel a bit hesitant about posting this message, as what I'm about to
describe is not yet released, and in fact has not even been beta tested.
The general net population will probably not see this package for another
few weeks.

But I'll talk about it anyway.

I have been working on a UUCP/mail package that will run on a Macintosh.
For UUCP, I'm using John Gilmore's "gnuucp" package (which, incidentally,
runs on Unix, MS-DOS, Amigas, Ataris, and even CP/M machines).  He is still
developing and testing it (in fact, I just sent him another batch of
revisions today).  I don't know when it will be officially released.

The mail program is something I wrote from scratch.  It's pretty basic
right now -- you can read and write messages, but there is no facility for
any kind of fancy sorting or filing.  It uses standard RFC822-format
headers, so it could be made to work with other transport protocols
(SLIP/SMTP, for example).

The mail program will eventually support reading and sending Usenet
messages (at which time I'll have to think of another name other than "mail
program" :-). I won't be seriously working on the Usenet interface until
the mail portion is working well, and when I have a higher speed modem
(maybe tomorrow, if Telebit comes through on my order!).

And for the question I'm sure everyone is asking: how much will this cost?
The mail/news program will be shareware, probably around $25.  Since gnuucp
is done under the Free Software Foundation, I will probably include it for
free.

To prove that this is not total vaporware, I actually have my Mac
registered in the UUCP maps as "sly" (or "sly.graton.ca.us", if you speak
domains).  You can check it out for yourself.

Send me mail if you have any further questions.  Please note, though, that
if you just want to know when the package will be released, I'd appreciate
that you *not* send me mail.  I will definitely let the net know when
the official version is released.

(To Steve Yelvington: I tried replying to your message about UUCP's on the
Mac, but I could never get a reply through.  Sorry.)

--John Labovitz

* Domain: xylo@graton.ca.us / xylo%sly@wb3ffv.ampr.org / jsl@cup.portal.com
* UUCP:   ...!wb3ffv!sly!xylo
* Phone:  707/823-2919
* USPS:   P.O. Box 523, Graton, CA 95444