Alex,

 MV>> That's putting the cart befopre the horse. You are the one proposing a
 MV>> change. The onus of proof that it will not harm anyone is upon you.
 MV>> You prove to me that there is no software (oter than makenl) that has
 MV>> a problem with it.

 AS> But you know there is no way to prove it. I should test all
 AS> the existing software and that is impossible.

Ah, you are finally coming to see the light.

Indeed we can not test all exiting software for the simple reason that we
have no idea what's out there. The fact is that when we make a change that
is not within present specs, we have no idea what and who will be affected
by it.

 AS> But I have a way to avoid the problems, this way is the patcher.

So yiou claim to have a solution. What was the problem again?

O, yes, some people have a problem with the "stigmata" of the Pvt
keyword which indicates that they are ION.

Well, I have a much better solution for that. One that is /guaranteed/ not
to break any legacy software.

Let's make a patcher that removes Pvt from all nodes that have one or more
valid IP flags.

So everyone that feels he needs compensation for whatever he feels needs to
be compensated can run this little programme to have his stigmata removed
from his private copy of the nodelist. How's that?

 AS>>> if you do, I promise to manage a little nodelist patcher for
 AS>>> this particular software that will insert 'pvt' keyword
 AS>>> into the entries with -Unpublished- phone.

 MV>> 1) Will it run on a Mac?

 AS> It will be written in plain ansi ‘, I hope we will find a
 AS> person to compile it for MAC.

And the Atari? And the Lisa? And the Acorn Atom?

 MV>> 2) How are you going to handle the case where there is already
 MV>> something in the first field, like Hub or Host?

 AS> This is more interesting question. It seems Hub and Host
 AS> conception must be thought out, but till then we should not
 AS> have Hubs and Hosts without the real phonenumber.

But in that case, your operation is purely cosmetic. It serves no purpose
whatsoever except to create an extra step that will make nodelist
distribution more complicated with the inherent chance of extra errors.

 AS> It is not useless as far as we don't have anything else except pvt,
 AS> hold and down in the first field followed by -Unpublished- phone
 AS> in the current nodelist.

Yes, it is useless. You are staring yourself blind on those three
characters. Removing them in the distribution list and then later inserting
them in the working copy is a purely cosmetic operations that serves no
purpose whatsoever except to satisfy the genitally challenged.

 AS> It is not universal solution, but it is step forward.

Adding unneeded conversion steps in the nodelist distribution is not a step forward.


Regards, Michiel

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