Hi Michael,

Saturday July 03 2004 01:33, you wrote to Gordon Lewicky:

 MG> Hello Gordon.  03 Jul 04 02:53, you wrote to me:
 MG>>> I disagree. Most mailers will already prevent any dialing when
 MG>>> they encounter -Unpublished- in field six, even without the Pvt
 MG>>>...
 MG> So we hold the network's progress hostage to antiquated software that
 MG> should have been updated long ago, except that the authors have
 MG> disappeared and not released the source code? At some point, one has
 MG> to give up on abandonware and use something that works for /today's/
 MG> needs in this network.
 MG> If some people can't accept that you need to make some allowances for
 MG> the needs of others in this network, then I'd say that this network is
 MG> better off without them.

Implementing new technologies or addtl. features into existing nodelist
format _must_ be backwards compatible under all circumstances!

This means, leaving restriction rules untouched.
Add features in a way that old nodelist line parsing rules
will work, for _all_ software, old and new without exceptions.

The only exception that is acceptable is that the new features
cannot be used by old software ....

i.e. - placing a FQDN into field 3 or 4 (systemname, city fields)
is acceptable 'cause these fields wasn't parsed by any software
for any dialing rules.
- Breaking the pvt/-unpub- rule breaks the restriction implented in
existing and used software.
- Placing a FQDN into the phone field breaks the rules that implemented
in existing software and handled by one or more modem chipsets.

Nobody can guarantees that case b or c changes of rules
preventing existing running systems to barf.
Exceptions are a known fact for these rules.
So implementing these rules _can_ causes harm to members
(i.e. phone costs, time to find out a solution to deal with).
So this implemtation is inaccetable by design.

Alternativly a Pvt redefinition by a policy upgrade,
that pvt can also be used for alternate listings such as IONs
will not break the software implemention rules to handle pvt.


regards, uli   ;-)

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