From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/45441 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Matthias Andree Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: yEnc support in Gnus? Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 12:16:23 +0200 Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: <20020627184848.A14291@krusty.dt.e-technik.uni-dortmund.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1025432214 19463 127.0.0.1 (30 Jun 2002 10:16:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 10:16:54 +0000 (UTC) Cc: ding Return-path: Original-Received: from malifon.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.13]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 17OblG-00053o-00 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 2002 12:16:54 +0200 Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu ([129.7.128.10] ident=lists) by malifon.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 17Obl6-00054b-00; Sun, 30 Jun 2002 05:16:44 -0500 Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Sun, 30 Jun 2002 05:17:05 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (qmailr@sclp3.sclp.com [209.196.61.66]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id FAA02787 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 2002 05:16:53 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: (qmail 22534 invoked by alias); 30 Jun 2002 10:16:27 -0000 Original-Received: (qmail 22529 invoked from network); 30 Jun 2002 10:16:27 -0000 Original-Received: from p508774cd.dip.t-dialin.net (HELO m2a2.myip.org) (postfix@80.135.116.205) by gnus.org with SMTP; 30 Jun 2002 10:16:27 -0000 Original-Received: by merlin.emma.line.org (Postfix, from userid 500) id 367E83FBB1; Sun, 30 Jun 2002 12:16:23 +0200 (CEST) Original-To: Per Abrahamsen In-Reply-To: (Per Abrahamsen's message of "Fri, 28 Jun 2002 10:58:12 +0200") Original-Lines: 43 User-Agent: Gnus/5.090007 (Oort Gnus v0.07) Emacs/21.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:45441 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:45441 Per Abrahamsen writes: > Matthias Andree writes: > >> Please refrain from adding yEnc to Gnus. yEnc is junk, it has a bad >> implementation, is not MIME-aware and does not solve any problem without >> giving rise to new problems. base64 is well-proven and robust. yEnc is >> not. > > I agree with everything above, except the first sentence. yEnc is > quickly becoming a de facto standard for binaries on parts of the net, > and Gnus ought to provide at least decoding support, no matter how > much it suck. Of course, provided someone actually volunteer to > implement it. It serves not other purpose than abusing Usenet structures and NNTP for distribution of 0dayz-warez, what it was never designed for. What good is this stuff in Gnus? Not at all. There are hundreds of tools which are a dozen times more efficient than Emacs at decoding binary stuff. Check freshmeat. > Also, to yEncs defence, while a lot of us had clever ideas of how to > provide more optimized mechanisms for transport of binaries over 8bit > lines, the yEnc creator actually went ahead and implemented a > solution. Yes. It's a step back in terms of transmission reliability. Helbing has been told in news:de.comm.software.newsserver to make yEnc MIME-aware a dozen times, but never got around to do it. Presumably, he does not understand MIME; but he didn't come up with real questions either. There's a reason that there are only binary, quoted-printable and base64 encoding: these are the reliable ones. Why proliferate encodings when there are better protocols that can send binary data unencoded? HTTP, FTP, GNUTELLA, and more exist with a vast choice of software for each protocol. Use these for binary distribution. -- Matthias Andree