Bug#933: Pine wants to post my email reply, and other problems
On Sun, 18 Feb 1996 richard@uk.geeks.org wrote:
>
> [see the bug archives for previous discussion. I don't propose to
> quote it all.]
>
> >The first question is a discussion about how the posting facility
> >works with pine. The second problem is, in fact, the solution to the
> >first, in that it disables the feature that problem one found
> >objectionable.
>
> Is this the `two wrongs make a right' concept of software maintenance?
> I'll assume you meant that facetiously...
No! It spoke to the cut off portion of my reply about keeping bug reports
to one issue. From the rest of this post I can only assume that you are
from the same school, but I will try to speak to each of your varried
points, if I can...
>
> >I can do nothing functional about either of these issues.
>
> As to the issue of Pine's attempts to post email, I should have
> thought that the correct action (in the absence of any wish to try and
> fix it directly) would be to report the problem to the upstream
> maintainers.
As Ian pointed out in one of his posts (maybe private) communication with
the upstream developer on this idea has been rejected in the past. I see
no purpose in this book work.
>
> It is observed fact that Pine and programs with a similar policy on
> what constitutes a news article have a habit of posting to USENET
> messages which were only intended to be mailed. This is a user
> interface deficiency rather than a bug in the actual functionality,
> but given that Pine's only good point[1] is that it has a nicer user
> interface than most mailers, I'd say it's a serious bug.
>
Well, in fact, Ian fails to point out that when pine exhibits this
behavior, its default response to the question is NO (don't post this to
the news group) which is exactly what you two are saying it should do!
The fact that it offers to do this for you, but will not unless
specifically asked, seems to fit the broad mix of desires of the user
base for this program. As to the configuration problems using pine with
INN, I can not speak to these. I use a news reader, don't use INN, and
have no problems with either.
> >I feel certain that Ian J. is more capable than myself at figuring
> >out how to *properly* configure INN to work compatably with pine's
> >NNTP feature
>
> As to the NNTP problems: AFAICT the inewsinn package's postinst places
> the name of the news server in /etc/news/server. Pine's postinst
> should either look there or, should there be no such file, it should
> ask for a value to put there. Having established a sensible value it
> should insert it into the global Pine configuration file in the right
> place.
This all sounds to me like a job for the sysadmin type, not the package
maintainer. These are all, variable and complex interaction issues that
should not be dictated by the package maintainer!
>
> This much is certainly nothing whatsoever to do with INN; rather, it
> is a serious functional bug in the Debian Pine package. Looking at
> the postinst for 3.91-3 (which may be out of date) I can find no
> attemt to determine a sane value for the NNTP server.
>
The package maintainer takes the position that this is not his job. In
fact, I'm not even sure this is the job of the sysadmin. Choice of an
NNTP server is intended to be left up to the end user! That's why it's on
the config menu.
> (/etc/news/server should be documented somewhere. The fact that it
> isn't makes it clear why this problem has actually arisen. I'd
> suggest mailers.txt but many of Pine's infelicities stem from
> confusion between mail and news, so perhaps that's not such a good
> idea l-)
>
> Moving on...
>
> The message which according to Ian immediately erased is definitely a
> bug in Pine, and again it should be reported to the upstream
> maintainers.
Well, many messages in pine act this way. If ispell is not properly
configured for pine the error message can only be seen by holding down
^T. This is far afield of the reported bug under discussion, but if you
wish to report it as a bug, I will pass it allong to the upstream
developers and see what thy say. Please make the report clear, to the
point, and one topic only.
>
> This much is also nothing to do with INN.
>
> The dodgy Path: line is (AFAIK) not something which will break posting
> in and of itself - indeed, if Ian is getting to see it at all then he
> must have made a posting successfully - but is certainly something
> that ought not to be there, and if it is established that Pine is
> inventing a bogus Path: line then this, too, should be reported to the
> upstream maintainers. As Ian says, it's not really Pine's job to do
> this.
At this point, with such sketchy info, it's not clear when or if it is
pine's job or if pine is in fact doing it, or if pine can be made to not
do it. This still looks to me like a config problem, but with more
specific information I can follow the trail and see what needs to be
configured to stop the offending behaviour, although this is low priority
for me.
>
> One of the problems with USENET is that the written documentation is
> widely scattered when it exists at all; one has to go by the de facto
> standard of what other software does. This makes it hard to argue
> about the `right' way to do things.
>
> --
> Richard Kettlewell
> http://www.elmail.co.uk/staff/richard/ richard@uk.geeks.org
>
> It was definitely murder - but was it art?
>
> [1] OK, I'm a bit prejudiced as I don't actually like the Pine user
> interface. If anyone wants to argue the pros and cons of Pine as
> a mailer with me then they are invited to do so by private email
> rather than debian-*.
>
It is this that I have found so frustrating about dealing with you two
about this bug (and some others). Ian has admitted to me in private
communication that he isn't even a Pine user! Now, after wading through
your rather long winded, diversionary discussion, I discover that very
likely you don't use the product either!
I am quite happy to work with users of this package to make improvements
where possible. I am quite fed up with dealing with non-users over issues
that the developer and I agree are non-bugs! When I have the time, I will
close this bug and any future openings of the same bug with a copy of
this posting.
Thank you for your time,
Dwarf
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aka Dale Scheetz Phone: 1 (904) 877-0257
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Black Creek Critters e-mail: dwarf@polaris.net
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