Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!Germany.EU.net!mcsun!sunic!news.lth.se!news.lu.se!magnus
From: magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson)
Subject: Re: Policy for code postings (was: TADS Source for Continuous Substa
Message-ID: <1993Apr26.165349.29869@nomina.lu.se>
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Organization: Theoretical Physics, Lund University, Sweden
References: <1993Apr26.121335.23881@nomina.lu.se> <)> <1rgmjfINNdje@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1993 16:53:49 GMT
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In article <1rgmjfINNdje@life.ai.mit.edu> dmb@ai.mit.edu writes:
>In article <1993Apr26.121335.23881@nomina.lu.se> magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:
>>And, yes, Virginia, there *are* unshar programs for all the platforms
>>that TADS runs on.
>
>Is there an "unshar" for the Macinstosh?  Shar format assumes you have
>an sh-like shell, along with Unix commands like "test" and "sed".  

You're jumping to conclusions.

shar doesn't assume that one has sh, test and sed. It only produces
files that _can_ be unpacked using those commands, but since the shar
format is so simple it's (almost) trivial to unpack them anyway.

In fact, in the shar distribution there is an unshar program that
is written entirely in C, with (as far as I know) no sepcial requirements
on the host system. And if there weren't that program, one could easily
write one.

>It
>seems more likely to me that someone would have ported zip than shar to
>systems like that.

Porting zip to the Macintosh is highly non-trivial. Nevertheless, it
has been done. 

>And don't forget that TADS is running on more machines every day.  Is
>the Apple IIgs likely to have shar?  Is the Amiga?  

Yes.

>While you pointed
>out in your last message that the whole world is NOT Unix, it seems to
>me that you're now recommending the archiver that is the most
>Unix-dependent.

I'm most certainly not.

>Yes, I know that one could write an unshar program that would work
>without really having sh, test, sed, echo, etc.  as separate programs,
>but unshar doesn't really seem like a high-demand item since it's not
>used for wide software distribution outside of a few Usenet groups.

The question here is not only portability, but *readability*.

Even though posting sources as uuencoded zip archives might be the most
portable solution (though I don't know if there's a zip for the Amiga),
there remains the fact that zip files are binary files, and one of the
basic rules of Usenet is

Thou shalt not post binaries to discussion groups.

I'm not saying this becauseI'm an anal-retentive, pseudo-fascist bigot
who must at all costs see the Laws of Usenet followed to the letter.
I'm most decidedly not such a person. 

However, whenever people start posting binaries to a discussion group,
there is the danger of the following chain of events:

1. John Doe posts a uuencoded zip (tar.Z, whatever) file.
2. Five other persons follow his example.
3. So far, everything has been under control - in our case, for example
   all the binaries have been small pieces of source, and only certain
   purists fell disturbed. Now, however, some newbie decides to do the
   net a favour by posting five cool PC adventure games (executables)
   "because not everybody can ftp to ftp.gmd.de".
4. J. Random Luser and 69 of his colleagues see this and decide to follow
   suit by posting the executables of all adventures they've got, 
   including the entire LTOI package.
5. People start flaming about copyright violation.
6. Some sicko posts a trojan horse that masquerades as a Zork executable
   but in fact nukes your hard disk.
7. People start complaining in earnest, but their complaints drown in the
   two megabytes of binaries posted each day to r.g.i-f.
8. Sysadmins start pulling the plug on r.g.i-f.

*This* is what I'd like to avoid.

You may call me alarmist, but things like this have happened before.

              Magnus Olsson                | \e+      /_
    Department of Theoretical Physics      |  \  Z   / q
        University of Lund, Sweden         |   >----<           
 magnus@thep.lu.se,  thepmo@selund.bitnet  |  /      \===== g
PGP key available via finger or on request | /e-      \q

