Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: CNEWS MUST DIE!
Message-ID: <1991May21.163432.9609@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Tue, 21 May 1991 16:34:32 GMT
References: <1991May18.041319.29490@zoo.toronto.edu> <gi69231w164w@mantis.co.uk>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <gi69231w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes:
>If a system falls over because of errors in its input, then that system
>should be fixed. C News should not Nanny it.

On the whole, we agree; it is not our job to save people from the flaws 
of their broken software.  However, there is such a thing as being a
responsible citizen even when it is not compulsory, especially bearing
in mind that many people on the net are not in a position to fix their
own software and may have trouble getting fixes out of the authors.

Articles that do not conform to the relevant standards have been living
on borrowed time; there has never been any guarantee that they would be
relayed reliably.  We regret the pain being caused by the transition to
closer conformance, but still think it was a reasonable thing to do.

>If the input to relaynews is *really* unparseable (lacking *essential*
>information and containing *uncorrectable* errors...

Once and for all:  we have seen too much grief caused by misguided attempts
to "correct" mistakes in headers to ever engage in this practice ourselves.
The possibilities for nasty side effects are simply too great.  We aren't
going to do it.  The subject is closed.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
