I  would like  that  LISTSERV  Filelists included  filemodes.  This would  have
several advantages:
 
* Better  compatibility   with  NETSERV   Filelists  (total   compatibility,  I
  believe, excepting perhaps some improvements  on the FAC definition section).
  Netserv filelists  (as seen by  the user) would  become a proper  subclass of
  Listserv filelists (regarding complexity).
 
* If LISTSERV is used  to maintain a shared disk (we are  doing it here), i.e.,
  if one  defines filelists where  all the  GET FACs are  N/A but the  PUT FACs
  list the person  responsible for each file, people feels  more comfortable if
  the good  old filemode is  also included. (Of  course, this assumes  that the
  server has  accessed the  disk under  the same filemode,  and that  a trivial
  user exit  that makes  Listserv to store  each file under  its true  name has
  been written).
 
* Programs will  be helped by  the presence of  a filemode. Consider  a program
  that  checks that  the contents  of some  minidisk and  the contents  of some
  filelists match, i.e.,  that there is no  file in any minidisk  not listed in
  the filelists, and  viceversa: knowing the filemodes would  help to determine
  ambiguities, as  when different files  are found  with the same  filename and
  filetype on  different minidisks  (i.e., a  program and  a local  update); an
  extension of  the NETLIST  program could  also benefit  from the  presence of
  filemodes: by inspecting a table of
 
    filelist-name mode userid cuu (password)
 
  it could  then automatically link  and access disks  and walk through  a tree
  of  filelists  without  worrying  about having  all  the  disks  concurrently
  accessed. I'm sure that other examples exist.
 
Jose Maria