From: SMTP%"kent@sparky.sterling.com" 18-DEC-1994 15:06:39.83 To: USRC CC: Subj: v47INF01: Introduction to comp.sources.misc Resent-Date: 18 Dec 1994 13:37:11 -0600 Path: decwrl!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uunet!sparky!not-for-mail From: kent@sparky.sterling.com (Kent Landfield) Newsgroups: comp.sources.misc,comp.sources.d Subject: v47INF01: Introduction to comp.sources.misc Followup-To: comp.sources.d Date: 18 Dec 1994 13:37:11 -0600 Organization: Sterling Software Lines: 1270 Approved: kent@sparky.sterling.com Expires: Wed, 1 Feb 1995 19:36:50 GMT Message-Id: <3d2317$i86@sparky.sterling.com> Nntp-Posting-Host: sparky.sterling.com X-Md4-Signature: 40fa0a933f176fb066f1caeafd43113e Xref: decwrl comp.sources.misc:1984 comp.sources.d:3232 To: unix-sources@pa.dec.com Resent-Message-Id: <"6BKvO1.0.1D.L59zk"@ftp-gw-1.pa.dec.com> Resent-From: unix-sources@pa.dec.com X-Mailing-List: archive/latest/413 X-Loop: unix-sources@pa.dec.com Precedence: list Resent-Sender: unix-sources-request@pa.dec.com Submitted-by: kent@sparky.sterling.com (Kent Landfield) Posting-number: Volume 47, Info 1 Archive-name: intro47 Supersedes: intro46: Volume 46, INF 1 Last-modified: 16-Dec-1994 This is the first of ten introductory messages about the newsgroup comp.sources.misc. It describes the newsgroup's history, how to submit sources to c.s.misc, where the archive sites are, and how to contact and access them. The second through ninth postings together comprise the index of previously posted software. The tenth article is a cross-index of patches that have been posted to this newsgroup. As always, I am looking for suggestions on how to improve the usefulness of the newsgroup. *Please* do not hesitate to send suggestions to kent_landfield@ftp.sterling.com. -Kent+ -------------------- 0. Contents This file covers the following topic areas. If you are interested in reading a specific topic you can go directly to it by '^number-of-area' ('g^number-of-area' if you are using trn). 1. Introduction 2. Deciding where to post your software 3. The structure of comp.sources.misc articles 4. Guidelines for submitting source for publication 5. Patches Handling 6. Special services 7. Reporting and tracking bugs. 8. Newsgroup Status Information. 9. Accessing the archives 10. Archive access via ftp 11. Archive access via uucp 12. Archive access via email 13. Extracting a retrieved archive member 14. Becoming an archive site 15. Listing of archive sites in no particular order -------------------- 1. Introduction Comp.sources.misc is sort of a "catch-all" sources group. The group is run in a generally informal manner. *Any* program source code will be accepted. Discussion and "sources wanted" requests will be discarded with a message back to the sender advising then to post to the correct newsgroup. Please do not send either to me, they don't belong here. The moderated comp.sources.misc replaced the unmoderated net.sources in May 1987. This was done by the Usenet backbone in response to the fact that net.sources was largely NON-sources. The initial moderator of comp.sources.misc was Brandon Allbery. Mail Brandon received at the time indicated that the majority of people were willing to trade the small delays for having a source group that wasn't full of noise. As stated above, the only reason a submission will be rejected is if it is non-source. I am striving to get things out as quickly as possible. Full testing of the source is not done. I do, however, assure that the postings are in shar format and shar'ed submissions can be unshar'ed correctly. If a patch is submitted, I assure that the patch can be applied to the sources it is to patch. If the submission is something that needs testing, it probably should be sent to comp.sources.unix or comp.sources.reviewed instead. -------------------- 2. Deciding where to post your software There are four choices for sources newsgroups, not counting regional sources groups (fl.sources) or groups for specific systems, such as comp.sys.sun.*, comp.sys.mac.*, etc. Choosing between them can be somewhat difficult for the novice, and even for seasoned sources posters with unusual submissions. Here, then, is a discussion of the various "primary" sources groups, their advantages and disadvantages, and a very crude attempt at quantifying when to use them. First off is comp.sources.unix. It is unfortunately named, but don't let that stop you from trying to submit something if it fits the group's guidelines otherwise. The benefits you'll get are testing of source on at least some machines before posting and guaranteed archiving at many Internet and UUCP sites. The problem is that smaller postings aren't usually accepted, as well as submissions that don't have a Makefile, a manual page and a README file. Also note that the current policy of comp.sources.unix is not to accept "shareware" programs, programs which request or require a fee to the author for continued use. Second is comp.sources.reviewed. It uses a Peer Review process to accept or reject submissions. Similar to the process used for academic journals, submissions are sent to a moderator who then sends the sources to Peer Review volunteers for evaluation. The Reviewers try to provide a timely evaluation of the software by compiling and running it on their machine(s). If the Moderator and Peer Reviewers judge a submission to be acceptable, the sources are posted along with the comments provided by the Reviewers. If a submission is not found to be acceptable, the author is provided with the Reviewers' comments, and the author has the option of addressing those comments and re-submitting the sources again. The benefits of this group are that your software will be thoroughly tested by multiple reviewers on multiple systems prior to it being posted to the world. For small sources and beta copies of programs (which probably should not be archived, in favor of a future production release), one might choose alt.sources. It has one major advantage over the other possibilities: there is no moderation, meaning no delays and no rules for formatting. (It is suggested that you add an "Archive-name:" to your postings so as to help out those who do archive the group.) You're free to just pipe a source file to inews if the fit takes you (not that I recommend it). It also has one major disadvantage: since the group isn't moderated, there is nothing preventing people from starting up discussions ranging from source code topics to why EUnet works the way it does. This, if you'll recall, is what caused comp.sources.misc to be created in the first place. Another disadvantage is that, being an "alt" group, it doesn't get as wide a distribution as the "mainstream" Usenet. (For further information on the "alt" hierarchy, see the "Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies" document posted each month by Gene Spafford in news.lists.) For more information on posting to alt.sources see the "Welcome to alt.sources!" document posted biweekly by Jonathan Kamens in alt.sources. And then there's this group, comp.sources.misc. The original charter called for moderation solely to reject non-source postings, nothing more; the intent was to provide net.sources without the noise. This grew as a policy was adopted of letting the group be controlled more by its users (submitters, readers, archivers) than by "moderative fiat". The advantages of posting here are that archiving is as widespread as comp.sources.unix, anything which is source code can be posted, and it's guaranteed not to be lost in non-source, discussion postings; the disadvantages are that there is a slight delay caused by having to filter stuff through the moderator. So which do you choose? While there are no hard rules, there does seem to be an evolving rationale for the use of the groups: if your software is in need of beta-testing and it is not quite ready for mainstream archiving, post it to alt.sources. After the beta period is over, submit it to the appropriate comp.sources.whichever group for worldwide distribution and archiving. In general, games usually are sent to comp.sources.games regardless of their size. Postscript sources are sent to comp.sources.postscript. Programs which are specific to a particular computer would be better off in an specialized sources group like comp.sources.sun or maybe comp.sources.amiga, and X-Window based applications should be posted in comp.sources.x. Major programs usually go to comp.sources.unix, and comp.sources.misc is used for the rest. Moderators of different sources groups, mainly c.s.misc, c.s.reviewed and c.s.unix, have been receiving submissions from authors that were previously posted in another sources group. For the most part the moderators would like to discourage the kind of group jumping that has occurred in the past. It makes it harder for the community to point people to the most current versions if a package appears in more than one newsgroup. It would be better if authors posted their packages to a single group and sent future updates to the same group. That way there never is a question as to which group has the most current version of the package. This does not mean that we won't accept it. Just be ready for a question or two so that the moderators understand that you truly want it that way. Remember though, it's up to *you* to decide which newsgroup your submission should be posted to. Here is a list of the sources groups that I am aware of that you may wish to consider when preparing to submit/post your sources. (Any additions or corrections to the list gladly accepted.) ==================== USENET comp.sources: ==================== comp.sources.3b1 Source code postings for the AT&T 3b1 David H. Brierley comp.sources.acorn Source code postings Acorn machines Peter Gutmann & Edouard Poor comp.sources.amiga Source code postings for the Amiga Michael Dinn comp.sources.apple2 Source code postings for the Apple II Jonathan Chandross comp.sources.atari.st Source code postings for the Atari ST Annisu Groenik comp.sources.games Postings of recreational software Bill Randle comp.sources.hp48 Programs for HP48 and HP28 calculators Chris Spell comp.sources.mac Software for the Apple Macintosh Roger Long comp.sources.misc Posting of any and all software Kent Landfield & Alec David Muffett comp.sources.postscript Posting of postscript related sources Jonathan Monsarrat postscript@cs.brown.edu comp.sources.reviewed Source code evaluated by peer review David Boyd comp-sources-reviewed@sterling.com comp.sources.sun Software for Sun workstations Charles McGrew comp.sources.unix Postings of UNIX-oriented sources Paul Vixie, Mike Stump & Nick Lai comp.sources.x Software for the X windows system Chris Olson ====================== Alternate Hierachies: ====================== bionet.software.sources Sources relating to biological sciences Rob Harper biz.sco.sources Source code postings SCO UNIX Micheal P. Deignan vmsnet.sources VMS Based Source code postings ONLY Mark Berryman alt.sources Alternative source code. Beta copies, etc alt.sources.amiga Technically-oriented Amiga PC sources gnu.emacs.sources C and Lisp source code for GNU Emacs u3b.sources Sources for AT&T 3B systems vmsnet.sources.games Recreational VMS software postings ======================= Regional Source Groups: ======================= de.comp.sources.amiga Programs for the Amiga. Matthias Zepf de.comp.sources.misc Programs for MS-DOS, TOS, VMS etc. Udo Klimaschewski de.comp.sources.os9 Programs for OS-9/68000. Frank Kaefer de.comp.sources.st Programs for the Atari ST. Udo Klimaschewski de.comp.sources.unix Programs for UNIX/XENIX. Frank Kaefer relcom.comp.sources.misc CIS sources Alex G. Nilov aus.sources Australian Sources Group de.alt.sources.next NeXT programs (Sourcecode). de.alt.sources.huge.unix Huge programs for Unix. eunet.sources European EUnet-wide source postings fj.sources Japanese posting of general software fj.sources.mac Japanese postings of Apple Macintosh software fl.sources Florida postings of source mn.sources Minnesota source code sfnet.sources Finnish source code swnet.sources Swedish source code uk.sources UK wide sources/reposts/requests -------------------- 3. The structure of comp.sources.misc articles Each posting in c.s.misc is called an "issue". There are generally 100 to 125 issues in a volume. The division is arbitrary, and has varied greatly in the past. There are two types of articles in c.s.misc; "source postings" and "informational postings." They can be distinguished by the subject line. Subject: v03INF1: Introduction to comp.sources.misc This first word in the title identifies this as the first informational posting of volume three. Similarly, the subject line shown below: Subject: v031i072: lc - Categorize and List Files In Columns, Part01/02 identifies this as the 72nd source article in Volume 31. In the above example, the Part01/02 indicates that this is the first part of a two part posting. The first few lines of an article after the USENET required headers are the auxiliary headers that look like this: Submitted-by: kent@sparky.Sterling.COM (Kent Landfield) Posting-number: Volume 31, Issue 72 Archive-name: lc/part01 The "Submitted-by" line in each issue is the author of the program. IF YOU HAVE COMMENTS ABOUT AN ISSUE PUBLISHED IN COMP.SOURCES.MISC, THIS IS THE PERSON TO CONTACT. When possible, this address is in domain form, otherwise it is a UUCP bang path relative to some major site such as "uunet." The second line repeats the volume/issue information for the aide of NOTES sites and automatic archiving programs such as rkive. The Archive-name is the "official" name of this source in the archive. All source postings are treated as multi-part postings have been done in earlier volumes. All source postings are stored in a subdirectory within the volume directory. This gives me a place to store patches. It also allows me to have more informative archive names without having to worry about how many spaces the part numbering, patch indicator or compression suffix require. Postings have names that look like this: Source posting Archive-name: lc/part01 Patch posting Archive-name: lc/patch01 Note that the part number and patch number are zero padded. Also, note that the "part number" given in the title is used to give the reader an indication of the total number of parts which make up the complete set of sources. The example below shows that this is part 2 of a 4 part submission. Subject: v32i001: perlref - Perl Reference Guide 4.035.1, Part02/04 Informational (INF) postings, such as the posting you are currently reading, are not stored in a subdirectory as are source postings. INF postings have archive names such as indx33v01-07 and patchlog33. From an archiving perspective, archive names for all INFormational postings are specified so as to store the INF postings directly in the volume's base directory. Archive names for source postings are specified so as to store the sources in subdirectories within the volume's base directory. To support the tracking of patches, the Patch-To: line is used. The Patch-To: line exists for articles that are patches to previously posted software. The Patch-To: line only appears in articles that are posted, "Official", patches. The initial postings do not contain the Patch-To: auxiliary header line. Patch-To: syntax Patch-To: package-name: Volume X, Issue x[-y,z] Patch-To: examples. These are examples and do not reflect the accurate volume/issue numbering for rkive. In the first example, the article that contains the following line is a patch to a single part posting. Patch-To: rkive: Volume 17, Issue 17 This example shows that the 17-22 indicates the patch applies to a multi-part posting. The '-' is used to mean "article A through article B, inclusive.. Patch-To: rkive: Volume 17, Issue 17-22 If a patch applies to multiple part postings that are not consecutive, the ',' is used to separate the part issue numbers. It is possible to mix both ',' and '-' on a single Patch-To: line. Patch-To: rkive: Volume 17, Issue 17,19,20,21,22 or Patch-To: rkive: Volume 17, Issue 17,19-22 There is only one Patch-To: line found in an article. If a new release is posted instead of a large set of patches, the new posting contains a Supersedes: header line with a format similar to the Patch-To: header. Supersedes: syntax Supersedes: package-name: Volume X, Issue x[-y,z] Supersedes: example Supersedes: rkive: Volume 17, Issue 17-22 The Supersedes: line is helpful for cleaning archives by providing a pointer to previous versions that the archive administrators can then remove from their archives. The Environment: auxiliary header line is included to give you a quick indication which resources are required to use a particular issue. In a newsgroup not restricted to one type of operating system, one type of machine or one type of architecture there is a need for this type of information in the header. The intent is to provide you more external information about the package contained within the posting. This allows you to determine if the package has special requirements that might prevent you from using it. It is extremely irritating to take the time to unpack something just to find out that you can't use it. The news Keyword: line has been used to a certain extent for this, but if news articles are saved with 'w' rather than 's' from "rn" or "trn then the news headers don't get saved with the article. Environment: syntax Environment: Keyword [, keyword ..] Environment: example Environment: SunView, XView, X11R5, termcap The keywords usage is case insensitive. There is also a NOT indicator (e.g. !AIX) so that the moderator can specify that the package runs on everything "but" the specified keyword. The following is a list of keywords used within articles that have been posted to c.s.misc and their meanings. Keywords are added to this list on a first-use basis. Operating Systems: AIX - should operate on any AIX AIX3.1 - should operate on AIX Version 3.1 AMIGA - should operate on AMIGA OS ATARI - should operate on an Atari ST BSD - should operate on any BSD based unix CPM-68K - should operate on CPM based 68000 COHERENT - should operate on Mark Williams Coherent OS DOS - should operate on DOS ISC-UNIX - should operate on ISC UNIX ISC - should operate on ISC UNIX HP-UX - should operate on HP's UNIX MS-DOS - should operate on MSDOS OS/2 - should operate on IBM's OS/2 OSF/1 - should operate on OSF/1 POSIX - should operate any POSIX compliant OS SCO - should operate on SCO UNIX SCOXENIX - should operate on SCO XENIX SUNOS - should operate on SUNOS SYSV - should operate on System 5 SYSV/386 - should operate on a 386 running System 5 SYSVR2 - should operate on System 5.2 SYSVR3 - should operate on System 5.3 SYSVR4 - should operate on System 5.4 VMS - should operate on VMS UNIX - should operate on any unix system... (right...) ULTRIX - should operate on Ultrix XENIX - should operate on XENIX OSs Language Support: (C is the default so normally not specified) ANSI-C - Requires ANSI compatible C compiler AWK - pattern scanning and processing language C++ - Requires C++ Programming language Flex - fast lexical analyzer generator Fortran - Written in Fortran Icon - Written in the Icon Programming Language INET - Requires BSD networking support LaTex - Requires the LaTex support MIPS - Mips C compiler MSC - Microsoft C Pascal - Requires a pascal compiler Perl - Practical Extraction and Report Language Pro*C - Requires Oracle Pro*C compiler Postscript- Requires a postscript printer/viewer TurboC - Requires Turbo C VaxC - Requires VMS VAX C compiler Windowing Support: Curses - Requires the curses library Sunview - Requires the Xview library Xlib - Requires the X Windows library Xview - Requires the Xview library X11 - Should work on any X Window System X11R4 - Requires the X Window System Release 4 X11R5 - Requires the X Window System Release 5 System Support: System Utilities needed Cnews - USENET network news Csh - The C-Shell command interpreter C-shell - The C-Shell command interpreter (oops) DBX - BSD based source-level debugger DNS - Domain Name System Emacs - GNU Emacs getopt - parse command options in shell scripts HDB - HDB compatible UUCP system. (BNU) lpr - BSD Line Printer Spooler MMDF - MMDF mail transport Oracle - Oracle Database pathalias - mail routing tool PBM - Portable BitMap Package RCS - Revision Control System Sendmail - BSD based mail transport Smail - Smail3 mail transport Sybase - Sybase Database tput - Initialize a terminal or query the terminfo database xv - XV image display package Functionality Support: System supported functionality sxt - Requires SYSV sxt facilities symlink - System supports symbolic links INET - Requires BSD based networking facilities Hardware Tested on: Alliant - Runs on Alliant minisupercomputers Amdahl - Runs on Amdahl mainframes Cray - Runs on a Cray supercomputer with CSOS Cray2 - Runs on a Cray2 supercomputer with UniCos Convex - Runs on Convex minisupercomputers DEC - Runs on DEC Risc Workstations Mac - Runs on Mac PC - Runs on PCs or PC compatibles running DOS SGI - Runs on Silicon Graphics systems Sun - Runs on Sun Microsystems Workstations Hardware required: AT&T-4425 - Requires an AT&T 4425 terminal CDROM - Requires a cdrom player dj500 - Requires HP DeskJet 500 printer MIDI - You will need a MIDI to run this HPLJ - HP Laserjet II or III printer or compatible General Notes: !16BIT - Don't try to to run on a 16 bit machine (8088,186,286) 32BIT - Requires 32 Bit Architecture 24BIT - Requires 24 Bit Color Graphics card Prior to January 1, 1988, a different archive header system was used. At the time, it was not expected that comp.sources.misc would be welded into the then-evolving standard for sources archiving. There was only one special header line, and it resided in the main header. It looked like X-Archive: yymm/nn where "yymm" was the year and month of the submission date and "nn" was a sequence number. Please keep this in mind when dealing with archive submissions from 1987. -------------------- 4. Guidelines for submitting source for publication Alec David Muffett is my backup moderator and the primary point of contact if you are submitting DES or crypto based source code. He is the focal point for any postings of crypto sources. He is located in the UK and as such does not have any of the limitations that we have here in the US. This has been done to assure that there are no restrictions on the ability of posting sources to the world. Please send crypto/encryption submissions to: alec.muffet@sun.co.uk (Alec David Muffett) Send all other types of submissions to the addresses below. Non-encryption based submissions intended for posting should be sent to sources-misc@uunet.uu.net Newsgroup-related mail that is *not* a submission should be sent to me at sources-misc-request@uunet.uu.net I have changed my policy of notification when sources are submitted to comp.sources.misc. In the past I have not notified everyone that their submissions were received. This has caused some problems that could have been avoided if both parties knew how to deal with the other. When you submit a package to comp.sources.misc I will respond letting you know that I have received it. If you have not heard from me within seventy two hours, there may be a problem! I hope that by making you aware of this policy, the newsgroup will get a better throughput as authors aren't waiting for me to respond when I do not know to respond. To make life easier for both the readers of this newsgroup and myself, I request that all submissions follow the guidelines described below. Not following these guidelines may result in longer delays, since some things *must* be fixed for news to accept the submission. Others must be fixed so that I can spend time processing submissions rather than responding to flames. ;-) First, uuencoded postings are heavily frowned upon. If at all possible, binary data files should be translated to an ASCII format that is usable by others. If it's not possible, consider sending the machine-dependent parts of the posting to another newsgroup. If all else fails, it will be accepted if it's not the only component of the submission; otherwise, it may be better to announce the availability of the item via anonymous FTP, UUCP, FTAM, etc. The second rule is that "shell archives" as created by "shar", "cshar", "bundle", etc. be used to package files. Preferably, use cshar: it guards against mangling by older news programs, Bitnet mailers, etc. I must repack non-shar'ed submissions so that they have a better chance of surviving older mail/news systems and inter-network gateways. Third, *please* send a Subject: to be used in posting your submission. Certain large postings in the past have arrived sans Subject:. Not only does this force me to make one up for the archive list, but you have to live with what I make up... :-) Fourth, *please* send me an Archive-name: or package name that you want the submission archived by. If you do not send me one then I get to name your sources in the archives... Do you see a pattern forming here... :-) Fifth, I need Environment: header information. If your submission has limitations, such as it does not run on SYSV or limited to a specific version of SUNOS, or whatever the conditions, *PLEASE* inform me so that it can be included in the Environment: header line. This way people who are not able to run your submission will not take the time to ftp or unpack it. I will try to determine the Environment: information if you do not supply any but if you want it right... Each of the postings should contain a "blurb" which describes what the posting is/does/contains. This should only be a paragraph or two. When you submit your sources, please include the blurb on the first part. If you do not write it yourself, I'll have to grab it out of the submission somewhere. Please do not package executable programs and sources in the same submission. Executable binary programs are inherently system-dependent, and therefore should be posted to a system-specific "binaries" group. As a special case, Un*x executables should NEVER be posted to Usenet. Please keep source filenames to 12 or fewer characters in length. Not everyone has long filenames... :-( And for those of us that do, ar limits libraries members to 15 characters. I have been receiving a number of messages with uucp addresses that are not reachable. Please specify a domain based address if possible. If you do not know what your domain based address is, please ask your site admin or the site administrator of your upstream news feed. Other nice things to consider/supply when submitting sources... 1. A Makefile. 2. A manual page is highly recommended for any substantial sized submissions. 3. A README file is also highly desirable. This should contain a brief description of what the posting is and any special considerations in building it. The README should also contain a list of authors and the distribution and copying policy. 4. A patchlevel.h -- This file can be used to keep track of how many official patches have been applied. 5. ***PLEASE*** Take the time to lint your sources and maybe even run one of the memory allocation verifiers available via USENET or commercially. You will save yourself a ton of email time if you do and will put out highter quality code. Other considerations: The posting software I use reads the submission and prompts me for all the information needed to post. It uses information supplied by you in the header as the default information. The Subject: line is usually munged although your supplied information is used. Auxiliary headers supplied in the submission are used where appropriate. The following headers are passed through the software untouched. Keywords:, Organization:, Reply-To: and Summary: If you supplied them, they are put into the posted article. Again, *please* let me know what should go in the Environment: line. If you don't, I have to try to determine what is accurate. Sometimes it's hard to do without full blown testing. Archive-name:, Subject:, and Environment: are the three pieces of information that I really need. Otherwise I get to make up what is supplied there. Don't complain to me if I get it wrong and you didn't take the time to send me the correct information in the first place... If you did send me the information and I got it wrong, give it to me with both barrels... ----------------- 5. Patches Handling Patches are handled as swiftly as possible. Authors of sources posted to c.s.misc should send all patches to me so that I can post them back through the newsgroup in order that the patches can be archived. This has not been done in the past in other sources groups and has lead to lost patches. If the patches must get out *real* fast, then post them to comp.sources.bugs and other appropriate newsgroups and send me a copy at the same time. That way they will be available when they are needed in the future. Again, patches receive priority processing so make sure I get them. I would prefer not to post patches that are not sent by the author of the original posting unless special arrangements have been made with the author. Please send your unofficial patches to the author so that the author can incorporate them into their posting's baseline. Unofficial patches can be posted to comp.sources.bugs as a method of letting the community use the fix or enhancement during the interim. It is up to the author to determine if there have been major enough changes to warrant a complete reposting. This may be necessary if the size of the patches exceeds the size of the source but in most cases only patches are posted. Total repostings should be treated as an initial posting. What follows pertains to patches... 1. When patches are submitted, they should be in context diff format. Patches can be made with diff -c on 4.x BSD based machines and with diffc on others. Diffc can be found in volume 1 of comp.sources.unix archives. GNU diff can also be used to create context diffs. 2. Please assure that the patches are relative to the source directory. In otherwords, cd into the new source directory and create the patches by specifying "old-source-dir" then "." when running the diff. This makes it easier to apply the patches as there is no confusion concerning reversed patches or directory path name changes. 3. A patch to patchlevel.h should be done to reflect that the patch has been applied if a patchlevel.h existed in the initial posting. If one was not included initially, maybe now is a good time to consider including one... :-) 4. Include information about which previously posted issues the patch pertains to if they were initially posted to c.s.misc. For more information on patch see patch.man in util/patch/patch.man in the X11 Release 4 distribution or in volume7 of the comp.sources.unix archives. ------------------------ 6. Special services One way to solve the problem of an announcement not going out the same day as the posting it announces is to send the announcement to me under separate cover. Please, it slows things down if I have to break apart submission apart to get at the file. Please supply instructions as to which newsgroup(s) it should be posted in, and I will insure that both go out the same day, if possible. (If one of the other newsgroups is also moderated, there's not a whole lot I can do about it.) The same goes for binaries and/or other material associated with a source; send it under separate cover and tell me what to do with it, and I will try to arrange for them to all go out at the same time. -------------------- 7. Reporting and tracking bugs. You *should* subscribe to comp.sources.bugs. Sometimes, when new versions of previously-published software is made available, just patches are put out. Usually the patches are in the form of shar files containing input for the "patch" program, new files, etc. Sometimes complete new versions are put out. Which method is used depends on the poster and the moderator. Minor updates must be in patch form and should update a patchlevel.h file. Major updates should follow the guidelines for initial postings. To report bugs, contact the person listed in the Submitted-by: header. Often there is a contact address in a README file, too. I *do not* maintain the sources I moderate, so don't send your bug reports to me. That just forces a delay in the right person getting them as I will forward them on to the author. Likewise, I normally do not post patches for a package from anyone except the author. If you have patches you would like to see included in the package, send them to the person listed in the Submitted-by: header. ------------------------ 8. Newsgroup Status Information. You should subscribe to comp.sources.d. In some newsgroups, postings such as "I will be out of town..." and "What's in the queue to post..." have been posted as INF postings with an Archive-name: of /dev/null or .junk. I will not post these types of messages to c.s.misc due to the limited amount of time that information of this type is useful. These kinds of messages are being posted to comp.sources.d as the need arises. In this manner, the informational c.s.d postings expire as they should and will not be archived taking up disk space forever. -------------------- 9. Accessing the archives The archive sites are growing! There are now c.s.misc archives in Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, UK, as well as the US. A big THANKS! to all the sites who volunteered to make their resources available to the community! Now that we have all this great access, please try to use an archive site in your immediate area whenever possible. The complete archives are fairly large with an average volume taking up four megabytes. Some sites below offer to send tapes through the mail. For those sites, send the appropriate type of tape media WITH RETURN POSTAGE and RETURN MAILER. Tapes without postage or mailer will not be returned. No other methods (COD, etc.) are available; please don't ask. You will need to contact the individual archive sites to determine if they can support your type of media. There a couple sites that provide email access to their archives. Please use them when you need to locate a missing issue. Please don't ask me for missing issues. Included at the end of this article are detailed instructions on how to access the archives. More sites will be listed there in the future. You can always check with archie or refer to the "Anonymous FTP List" maintained by Perry Rovers (Perry.Rovers@kub.nl). I have as complete a set of archives as I have found. I have all the issues listed in the indexes except for the first volume. If you have articles from volume 1 please send me a list of articles so I can see if there are some I do not have. If anyone has an article that was posted to the group that is not listed in the indexes, please send me the information and a copy of the article so that I can update the archive sites that I maintain. Nothing from April and May 1987 was ever archived to my knowledge. If I'm wrong, send them my way... Submissions prior to July, 1987 have no auxiliary header information at all. At the time, the group's original charter was in full force, and archiving was not considered to be important. -------------------- 10. Archive access via ftp If an archive site provides "anonymous FTP" access, sites directly on the Internet can use the "ftp" program to get at sources. Sites which aren't on the Internet can not use ftp to retrieve this information. And no, just having the ftp program does not mean that you have access to the Internet. You should check with a local system administrator to find out the details of using ftp. On most systems and to most archive sites, the following will work: type the command "ftp system.domain" (example: "ftp ftp.uu.net" -- case does not matter), enter "anonymous" when it asks for a user name, and enter *your* Internet email address as the password. If "ftp" says that the system doesn't exist, check your spelling -- if the system name is spelled correctly, look for an IP address for the archive site and badger your system administrator to install a version of ftp which knows about nameservers. You should also be warned that some systems (like uunet) will not accept FTP connections from sites not registered with a nameserver. Once you're logged in to the archive system, you'll get a prompt that looks like "ftp>". It may not be identical, since it's possible to change the ftp prompt with a command in many versions of ftp.) At this point, you can use "cd" to change directories, "ls" or "dir" to list files, and "get" to retrieve them. For sources archives, it's not necessary to worry about file types unless the files are compressed. In that case, you must use the "binary" command for Unix or VMS hosts and "tenex" on Tenex (TOPS-10, TENEX, TOPS-20/TWENEX) hosts. *** Not switching the file type can result in a garbled file, especially *** on Tenex hosts, which do not store binary data the same way as Unix *** hosts. To disconnect from the archive site, enter the "bye" command. -------------------- 11. Archive access via uucp UUCP archives aren't as standardized as FTP archives. Check the archive list for the account name and password to use, and ask your system administrator to arrange to be able to poll the archive site. (If s/he/it refuses, you're stuck.) The "uucp" command is used to request files from a UUCP archive. Unlike FTP, UUCP does not (usually) do the transfer immediately. This is because most UUCP sites must be called over telephone lines. Long distance calls are usually made in the early morning hours to reduce costs. Since you can't look around in the archives, you must know the pathname of an article to be retrieved. Archives generally have an index file available via UUCP. It's a real good idea to retrieve this file before getting anything from the archive, since things can move around without warning. The command to retrieve a submission looks like uucp archivesite!path/to/file destination-location "archivesite" is the name of the archive site, and "path/to/file" is the pathname listed in the archive index for that site. Please note, for security reasons, it is not usually possible to specify wildcards (?, *, [], or ~name) in the pathname. Also, while more recent versions of uucp allow a uucp command to traverse multiple systems, for security and resource reasons this is usually disabled. In both cases you won't find out until after the archive site has been called. -------------------- 12. Archive access via email Some archive sites have mail servers that will accept mail from you and mail back files from the archive. There are no standards here; however, it's usually safe to mail a message containing the single word "help" to the mail server. Check the archive list for more information. As an example, to receive the index from the comp.sources.misc archives on uunet, send the following one line as the body of a message to uunet!netlib. send index from comp.sources.misc Ftpmail sites allow you to retrieve files via email as well. These servers get the files to be retrieved via ftp. For more information, send a message with "help" in the body of the message and you will receive instructions. IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER: Mail Archive Servers (MAS) are there for the convenience of the community and are *easily* abused. *Please* do not request to have a MAS send you GCC or X11R5. A good deal of this traffic goes through intermediate sites that have not advertised this service. You would be taking resources away that are not yours to take. This type of irresponsibility will do nothing but irritate the sites that feed you and may jeopardize your facilities in the process. -------------------- 13. Extracting a retrieved archive member If the article came from an archive site, it may be compressed. If it was sent by a mail server, it may also be uuencoded. Compressed files have an extension of ".Z". Uuencoded files can be recognized by a line saying "begin 666 filename", followed by lines of what looks like random gobbledygook. (If a mail server splits a file into multiple parts, you may just have the gobbledygook. In this case, the server will include a message saying which part of the file it is, and will tell you how to combine them.) To extract a uuencoded file, type the command "uudecode filename". This creates a (binary, usually compressed) file in the current directory. To extract a compressed file, type the command "uncompress filename". The ".Z" extension is removed from the file. The original, compressed file will be removed as part of this operation. After doing this, you should be left with the requested article exactly as it was stored in the news spool directories. The file contains a news header, a description (usually), and a "shell archive" ("shar"). Move to an empty directory (important!) and unpack the archive. Some systems have a command "unshar" to unpack these files; if yours does, use it. Otherwise, you can use an editor to remove the header, then just say "sh filename". I use a small (one line) shell script: sed '1,/^[#:]/d' $1 | sh which should handle anything (I hope!) in the c.s.misc archives. I do attempt to confirm that a shell archive contains nothing dangerous, but if you unpack as root and the archive removes your /etc directory or something equally ugly and unpleasant, I don't want to hear about it. Unpack shell archives as an unprivileged user. Once you've unpacked the archive, you're on your own. Keep the header from the submission handy, in case you can't figure out what's going on. The address specified in the "Submitted-by:" line can be used to contact the author of the program. ------------------------ 14. Becoming an archive site If you collect comp.sources.misc postings and are willing and able to make your collection available to other people, please let me know. Benefits include the undying gratitude of your colleagues, and a promise from me to try to make sure you never lose an article whether you use rkive or not... :-) If you can provide access to your archives send me some email and I'll get you some publicity... :-) If you need automated tools to build and maintain your archives, I have those too. :-) If you need a tape of the archives to get you jump-started, let me know. PLEASE NOTE: Mail Archive Servers are there for the convenience of the community but are too easily abused. Because of this, I can not, in good conscience, list archive sites whose sole access is email based. If you can't supply anonymous ftp as a secondary method for accessing your archives then consider uucp. It is easy enough to set up a uucp account for archive access with the appropriate security to protect your other system resources. -------------------- 15. Listing of archive sites in no particular order Here is what each field means: Site: The name of the site nice enough to act as an archive site. Contact: The name of the person to contact and their mail address Location: The general area of the world the site is located in. Modems: What types of modems are available. UUCP: Type of UUCP access is available. FTP: Type of FTP access is available. Mail Server: Account address of the automated mail server if available. Additional: Additional information pertaining to accessing the archive. NA - Not Available ************************ Australia ************************ Site: archie.au (aka plaza.aarnet.edu.au) Contact: Robert Elz netnews@archie.au Location: Australia FTP: anon ftp - usenet/comp.sources.misc Mail Server: Not published outside Australia Additional: ACSnet "fetchfile" service is available as well, from archie.oz.au in the same directory as for Anon ftp (this replaces uucp in Australia) Site: ftp.Adelaide.EDU.AU [129.127.40.3] Contact: Mark Prior Location: The University of Adelaide Adelaide, AUSTRALIA FTP: Anonymous ftp, ftp.Adelaide.EDU.AU [129.127.40.3] Additional: Also available via ACSnet fetchfile (sirius.ua.oz) The comp.sources.misc archive is in the directory pub/sources/misc and is archived in compressed form by issue number (subdirectories for each volume). The file INDEX in the pub/soures/misc directory lists the issues available. We will also make tapes (1600/6250bpi) or QIC-11/24 if you supply the tape AND a return mailer. No promises for speed for this though. ************************ Canada ************************ Site: array.UUCP Contact: Rob Marchand, rob@array.UUCP || ...uunet!attcan!lsuc!array!rob Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Modems: 2400 baud, perhaps TB in the future (hopefully :-) UUCP: On Request. Additional: I have most stuff for comp.sources.unix, comp.sources.misc, comp.sources.bugs and alt.sources. ************************ Finland ************************ Site: nic.funet.fi [128.214.6.100] Contact: Petri Ojala Location: Finnish University and Research Network (FUNET) Archive Finland, Europe FTP: Available Mail Server: mailserver@nic.funet.fi Additional: Access is unlimited to Nordic countries (NORDUnet). For mailserver access, the Subject is not used for anything. Message body is analyzed for commands, try "HELP" at first ************************ France ************************ Site: irisa.irisa.fr Contact: Didier Lamballais (lamballais@irisa.fr) Raymond Trepos (trepos@irisa.fr) Location: Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systemes Aleatoires Campus universitaire de Beaulieu 35042 Rennes Cedex FRANCE FTP: Anonymous FTP (login: ftp or anonymous, Password: your e-mail address) Additional: Additional information pertaining to accessing the archive. List of archived newsgroups : alt.sources, comp.binaries.atari.st, comp.binaries.ibm.pc, comp.binaries.mac, comp.sources.atari.st, comp.sources.games, comp.sources.mac, comp.sources.misc, comp.sources.sun, comp.sources.unix, comp.sources.x, comp.sys.sun under "News" directory. Some local stuff and RFCs are also available. ************************ Germany ************************ Site: ftp.Germany.EU.net Contact: Ingo Dressler Contact: Joerg Heitkoetter Location: Dortmund / (Western) Germany FTP: FTP access 24hrs a day, some restrictions during office hours Mail Server: , place "HELP" in body Additional: c.s.misc archive is /pub/newsarchive/comp.sources.misc as are comp.sources.amiga, comp.sources.atari.st, comp.sources.unix, comp.sources.x Access via FSP on port 2001. Site: ftp.informatik.uni-hamburg.de Contact: Reinhard Zierke, zierke@informatik.uni-hamburg.de Location: University of Hamburg, Dept. of Computer Science, Germany FTP: anonymous FTP to ftp.informatik.uni-hamburg.de, directory /pub/usenet/comp.sources.misc Additional: Please don't use FTP service from 09:00 to 18:00 MET ************************ Japan ************************ Site: srawgw.sra.co.jp [133.137.4.3] Contact: Toyoki Miura (miura@sra.co.jp) Location: Tokyo, JAPAN FTP: Anonymous FTP. 24 hours/day, 7 days/week Additional: Files are compressed and stored by volume number and issue number. Examples: /news.pub/comp.sources.misc/V31/v31i007.Z Lists are stored in "list" subdirectory as "Vnn-list". Newest volume is stored under "new" subdirectory instead of "Vnn" subdirectory. Files are not compressed. Other archived "sources" newsgroups: alt.sources, comp.sources.reviewed, comp.sources.sun, comp.sources.x, fj.sources Under "/news.pub/" directory (a.k.a. /.a/sranha-bp/arch/arch). ************************ UK ************************ Site: src.doc.ic.ac.uk Contact: ukuug-soft@doc.ic.ac.uk Location: Department of Computing, Imperial College London SW7 2BZ UK FTP: Anonymous FTP (login: ftp or anonymous, Password: your e-mail address) Mail Server: ftpmail@doc.ic.ac.uk Additional: Additional information pertaining to accessing the archive. Also supports FSP on port 21, gopher, FTAM on Janet, Internet and IXI. There is an open access account 'sources' for casual browsing. This is available via telnet, X29/TS29 and vt. List of archived newsgroups : All in the usenet/ directory alt.os.linux alt.sources comp.archives comp.dcom.telecom comp.lang.modula3 comp.os.linux comp.os.minix comp.sources.games comp.sources.hp48 comp.sources.misc comp.sources.reviewed comp.sources.sun comp.sources.unix comp.sources.x comp.sys.hp48 comp.unix.bsd uk.telecom news-info (a collection of all newsgroups FAQS) Site: unix.hensa.ac.uk Contact: archive-admin@unix.hensa.ac.uk Location: UK FTP: Anonymous FTP and guest NI-FTP. Mail server: archive@unix.hensa.ac.uk Additional: An interactive file browser is available via telnet or X29 connection into unix.hensa.ac.uk. For further details of how to access unix.hensa.ac.uk send the message send info/hensa.unix.general to archive@unix.hensa.ac.uk ************************ U S A - EASTERN ************************ Site: bhjat Contact: Burt Janz (bhjat!bhj) Location: Nashua, NH UUCP: Anonymous uucp (login: nuucp password: nuucp) Modems: 2400 Baud N81 - (603) 889-6154 Mail Server: Not yet available. Additional: Index location: /usr5/archives/ls-lR.Z Archiving c.s.games-misc-unix-x, alt.sources, comp.sys.handhelds Site: slug.pws.bull.com [128.35.10.203] Contact: Warren Lavallee Location: Billerica, MA. (NEARnet) Modems: T2500 FTP: anonymous ftp 24 hours day. limit 6 users at a time Additional: Due to internal restructuring, this site may not be accessible some times over the next month. Carry FULL comp.sources.* archives (since the beginning). Usenet archives are currently 170M. Site: uunet.uu.net/ftp.uu.net Contact: Kent Landfield (kent@uunet.uu.net) (402) 291-8300 Location: Fairfax, VA Modems: Telebit UUCP: uunet uucp customers and 1-900-GOT-SRCS FTP: anonymous ftp (please use ftp.uu.net for ftp access) Mail server: netlib@uunet Additional: UUNET is keeping archives in ~ftp/usenet/comp.sources.misc. I will be maintaining them. Volume 1 as well as shareware which has been posted to the group are not available from uunet. Volume 1 will be put back up in the near future. Until then, if you need any of those issues please send me some mail and I will arrange to get them to you. For more information concerning the archives on uunet, send an email message netlib@uunet.uu.net with the following as the body of the message: send index from comp.sources.misc You can also use 1-900-GOT-SRCS to access this archive. ************************ U S A - CENTRAL ************************ Site: ftp.sterling.com (Official Archive) Contact: Kent Landfield (kent@ftp.sterling.com) (402) 291-8300 Location: Omaha/Bellevue, NE FTP: Anonymous FTP Mail server: ftpmail@ftp.sterling.com Additional: This archive site has Volume-Issue, Archive-name and Package archive views. Volume01 is still being worked on for archive-names. Volume01 is currently only available in the Volume-issue section of the archive. I am in the process of unpacking and re-archiving everything available in the comp.sources.misc archives on this host. I got tired of trying to locate a package and having to grab pieces out of three or four locations to get a complete package. I decided to create a view of the c.s.misc archive that only had the most current version of a package in the directory. I am still working on the early volumes. I hope that this will eventually make accessing the archives easier than they have been in the past. Site: sir-alan Contact: mikes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (812-855-3974 days 812-333-6564 eves) Location: Bloomington, IN Modems: Telebit (812-333-0450) UUCP: Anonymous uucp (login: nuucp password: anon-uucp) FTP: Coming.. Additional: Archive site for comp.sources.[games,misc,sun,unix,x], some alt.sources, XENIX(68K/286/386), uucp-anon directory: /u/pdsrc, /u/pubdir, /u/uunet. help is in /u/pubdir/HELP. Site: wuarchive.wustl.edu [128.252.135.4] Contact: Wuarchive Maintainers Location: Saint Louis, Missouri. Connected to MIDnet Regional. UUCP: Subscription UUCP access available ($300.00/year flat fee) Modems: Telebit Trailblazer Plus and T2500. FTP: Anonymous FTP. T1 connectivity - 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. Additional: Access during all hours is encouraged. Plenty of available bandwidth. Wuarchive has everything! :-) :-) ************************ U S A - WESTERN ************************ Site: aeras Contact: Stewart Boutcher (stewart@aeras) (408) 922-1832 Location: San Jose, CA Modems: 2400, 9600 & 19200 UUCP: Anonymous Additional: SnailMail tapes (Under duress) Systems/L.sys information: aeras Any 2400 4089439152 "" "" ogin:--ogin: uugarch word: freebee aeras Any 9600 4089439396 "" "" ogin:--ogin: uugarch word: freebee aeras Any 19200 4089439246 "" "" ogin:--ogin: uugarch word: freebee Suggested places to get additional information: /u3/archive/sources/LISTING.Z LISTING.Z contains the names of all the programs stored in the archives, and the sizes. Note: all archives have probably been stored in compressed form, with 16 bit compression. All multiple file programs have been stored in separate directories, then compressed. More information about the files stored in a particular volume are kept in files called LOGFILE. Such as: /u3/archive/sources/x/vol1/LOGFILE would be the one to get to examine the exact contents of volume 1 of the x section. Additional information from files: sample command to recover files: uucp aeras!/u3/archive/sources/games/vol1/LOGFILE /tmp/. Special note: wild cards have been proven to not be reliable, so to assure success they are not recommended tools. Site: lll-winken.llnl.gov (128.11514.1) Contact: Joe Carlson (carlson@lll-winken.llnl.gov) Location: San Francisco, CA FTP: Anonymous FTP Mail Server: Account address of the automated mail server if available. Additional: Articles are stored by X-Archive: index in subdirectories of comp.sources.misc/volN. Note that these archives start from 9/87; anything from April to August isn't available. *NOTICE*: lll-winken is not permitting anonymous FTP for the time being. The archives are temporarily available on polaris.llnl.gov, 128.115.14.19.