Bob Jones wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 BJ> Source to DLC or a similar package (relased under a free type
 BJ> license, such as GNU GPL or BSD, or artistic, etc.) would be nice. 
 BJ> I believe I could code this up in a awk or perl script, but I don't
 BJ> intend to play such games any time soon. A recompile of DLC under
 BJ> Linux should just work.  If I remember right DLC could read the
 BJ> Maximus control files and just work from ther....

 RJT> I don't think it needs to read anything but the log 
 RJT> files.  And scripting does seem to be a viable choice with this one...

 BJ> From memory, DLC read both the (Bink and/or Max) log files to know
 BJ> what files were downloaded, and I believe it also read the Maximus
 BJ> FILEAREA.CTL control file to know where all the FILES.BBS files
 BJ> could be found.

That may be,  I don't recall.  Too bad it didn't go a bit further and
notice when area numbers had changed,  like when you added one.  But that
only messed me up with that "top ten" feature,  which I
eventually disabled anyhow.

 BJ> While the log file was only source needed for updating the 
 BJ> download counter, the FILEAREA.CTL file was needed to know where 
 BJ> to update FILES.BBS files with the '[   0]', or similar string, 
 BJ> for files added since DLC last accessed a given FILES.BBS file....

I wish it would come up with a better way to keep track of its position in
the log files than it did.  Or at least time/date stamp them like the
format of the rest of it...



 RJT> I've seen the results of some software doing that,  all over a 
 RJT> bunch of echos.  It's not fun.

 BJ>   The only reason the node under me doesn't get in trouble 
 BJ> with the zone 1 backbone(s) is because Squish catches the dupes 
 BJ> here.  As long as it does, both of us are happy, and don't worry
 BJ> about the problem......

I just wish that somebody would set up a dupe-catcher that would notice
that the system originating a message (1st one in the PATH line?) was
carrying a different node number than the one in the origin line.  Is this
what GMD does? I suppose that could be a problem with inter-zone traffic, 
though.

 BJ>  ...
 BJ> Is the author of PktSrt willing to release source under a free type
 BJ> (i.e. GNU GPL, BSD, Artistic, or other) license?

 RJT> I have no idea.  At one point I read that he couldn't be found,  
 RJT> and then that he'd turned up somewhere but had no particular 
 RJT> interest in supporting the program or accepting any 
 RJT> registrations,  which kind of leaves people hanging. My copy puts 
 RJT> two lines of stuff and one line of "unregistered" notice in the 
 RJT> log file each time it runs,  and I even had a small batch file to 
 RJT> take that stuff out.

 BJ> Then source isn't available....  And the code would have to be 
 BJ> re-written from scratch.  Since I don't see a need except for 
 BJ> possibly breaking messages that are too large, I'm unlikely to code
 BJ> such a program.  I might be tempted to add a "feature" to squish to
 BJ> break large messages, if it currently doesn't support that..... 
 BJ> But nothing in the near future.....

It's the sorting aspect of it that I like,  though.  It really does speed
things up here.

 BJ>  ....
 RJT> Well,  once we get these and max/squish/bink get 
 RJT> stable,  I'll be ready to jump and be running all-linux here.

 BJ> Good.....

 BJ> You have a similar goal to me....  I want to move the BBS to run
 BJ> under Linux or a similar "free" OS.....  

Yes,  an OS over which *I* have some control,  not some marketing jerk who
thinks they know what I want to do with my computer,  and stuffs all sorts
of junk in there that I have to work hard to get rid of...

---