On Fri, 17 Apr 1992 15:09:00 +0200 Eric Thomas said:
>On Thu, 16 Apr 1992 15:55:59 EDT Stan Horwitz <OASIS@TEMPLEVM> said:
>
>>What will be the major, if any, new features/changes in 1.7c?
Here is what I saved from Eric's posting on the list.
I made the habit of save such postings by Eric on changes for a new version
of LISTSERV by doing a PUT * vvv NOTES fm, where vvv is the version as in
17C. It beats having to dig through the archives. Others might be wise
to do the same.
-Duane
>
>Received: by OHSTVMA (Mailer R2.08 R208004) id 8526;
> Wed, 08 Apr 92 12:39:58 EDT
>Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 18:03:29 +0200
>Reply-To: "Forum on LISTSERV release 1.7" <[log in to unmask]>
>Sender: "Forum on LISTSERV release 1.7" <[log in to unmask]>
>From: Eric Thomas <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Change in the default value of MAIL-VIA for release 1.7c
>To: Duane Weaver <[log in to unmask]>
Release 1.7c will change the default mailing list behaviour to "Mail-via=
DISTRIBUTE" rather than "Mail-via= Direct". There are two equally
important reasons for this change: first, many lists are being operated
without DISTRIBUTE because the owner doesn't know about the option. When
DISTRIBUTE was first introduced, in 1986, it was logical to have lists
operate as before by default, for compatibility. But now that the
DISTRIBUTE system is well tested and so widely used, having lists waste
bandwidth by default violates the principle of least surprise.
The second reason is that the changes made in 1.7c no longer make
"Mail-via= Direct" a more efficient distribution mechanism, unless the
list is very small (thus saving the setup overhead of the DISTRIBUTE
processor) or very large (DISTRIBUTE requires more virtual memory to
accomplish the same thing). For an average list, cutting multiple copies
for local users is now faster via the DISTRIBUTE code, which does not use
a REXX loop and EXECIO for every copy.
In addition, having two instances of the same function to maintain is a
nuisance; some of the newer options (eg 'SET listname BSMTP') only work
for mailing lists that use DISTRIBUTE, or are painfully supported through
code that provides roughly but not exactly identical behaviour. This code
may need to be modified "soon" to introduce support for mail with lines
longer than 80 bytes, and I do not want to have two places to change. If
and when this happens, or if the mailing list processor is converted to
PREXX, the "Mail-via= Direct" code will be left out and this option will
be ignored.
If you have lists that *must not* operate with DISTRIBUTE, please change
their list headers now to avoid disruption when installing 1.7c. In
addition, please post a description of the reasons why you need the
ability not to use DISTRIBUTE, so that I can try to find a workable
arrangement for that problem.
Eric
**************
Duane D. Weaver
LISTSERV Postmaster
Senior Systems Programmer
Ohio State University
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