[news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15

[news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

*sob*  

Gnus didn't pass.  So I think I'll have to make Gnus a bit stricter. 

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen
------- Start of forwarded message -------
From: gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk (Gareth Rees)
Newsgroups: news.software.readers
Subject: GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15
Date: 25 Mar 1996 18:57:59 +0000
Organization: Garbanzo Creative Media
Message-ID: <yxs68btyp8o.fsf@stint.cl.cam.ac.uk>

This is an evaluation of the newsreader Gnus 5.0.15 according to Ron
Newman's "Good Netkeeping Seal of Approval" (GNKSA).

Gnus 5.0.15 (hereafter "Gnus") is a newreader written by Lars Magne
Ingebrigtsen in Emacs LISP for the GNU Emacs editor.  A slightly earlier
version, Gnus 5.0.13, is distributed with GNU Emacs 19.  A new version
of Gnus ("September Gnus") is in development.

For more information, see the following references.

  * Gnus: <http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/ding.html>

  * Good Netkeeping Seal of Approval:
    <http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/Good_Netkeeping_Seal>

  * Other GNKSA evaluations:
    <http://http.bsd.uchicago.edu/~t-pierce/news/index.html>

Gnus fails the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval for the following
reasons.

  * You can post an article with an empty "Subject" header.

  * You can post an article with a "From" header containing a
    syntactically invalid e-mail address.

Note that, in both cases, Gnus recognises that the header is incorrect,
and it asks whether you really mean to post the article.  But if you
answer "yes" then the article is posted anyway.  It is not clear to me
whether the GNKSA means that the news posting agent should prevent
posting of *all* article with incorrect headers, or merely prevent
*accidental* posting of such articles.  If the latter, then Gnus
certainly passes the GNKSA.  However, I think that posting such articles
should be made more difficult than just answering "yes" to a prompt.
Perhaps the readers of this evaluation can comment further on this
issue?

The full evaluation follows.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Item number in GNKSA document                      Sub-item passes test?
|   Item is required to pass the GNKSA?                  |  Item passes?
|   |    Description of item                             |    |    Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1  Y    Display all essential header info                    YES
      Y    default is to display                         YES
      Y    a) display author                             YES
      Y    b) display subject                            YES
      Y    c) display newsgroups list                    YES
      Y    d) display Followup-To list                   YES
      Y    e) display Reply-To if different from From    YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 2  Y    Provide standard commands                            YES
      Y    clear                                         YES
      Y    separate                                      YES
      Y    a) post a new article                         YES
      Y    b) post a followup article                    YES
      Y    c) reply by email                             YES
      N    use standard terminology                      YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 3  Y    Implement cross-posting                              YES
      Y    allow user specification                      YES
      Y    cross-post (not multi-post)                   YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 4  Y    Change essential headers                             YES
      Y    change headers while editing body             YES
      Y    change Subject                                YES
      Y    allow at least 70 chars in subject            YES
      Y    change Newsgroups                             YES
      Y    change Followup-To                            YES         (1)
      Y    allow Followup-To: poster                     YES
      Y    change Reply-To                               YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 5  Y    Correct Subject headers in followup/reply            YES
      Y    a) prepend "Re: " (exactly!)                  YES
      Y    b) preserve entire Subject                    YES
      Y       even subjects longer than 80 characters    YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 6  Y    Respect Followup-To                                  YES
      Y    use to initialize Newsgroups in followup      YES
      Y    recognize and act on Followup-To: poster      YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 7  Y    Followups contain References
      Y    contains Message-ID of original               YES
      Y    never truncate individual Message-ID          YES
      N    contains three References of original         YES
      N    contains entire References of original        YES
      N    contains any message-id mentioned in body     YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 8  Y    Direct email reply to Reply-To                       YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 9  Y    Quotation and attribution                            YES
      Y    provide method                                YES
      Y    set off by prepend                            YES
      Y    attribution line                              YES
      Y      identifies author                           YES
      N      gives message-id                            YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
10  Y    Subject is mandatory                                 NO
      Y    do not post empty Subject or "<none>"         NO          (2)
      Y    allow change while editing body               YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
11  Y    Must provide valid From header                       NO
      Y    syntactically valid                           NO          (3)
      N    belongs to the user                           NO
------------------------------------------------------------------------
12  Y    Must provide cancel                                  YES
      Y    of own articles                               YES
      Y    *not* of others                               YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
13  N    Respect line length, and post WYSIWYG                YES
      N    line breaks shown are present when posted     YES
      N    do *not* post paragraph without line breaks   YES
      N    warn if body has lines longer than 80 chars   YES
      N    external editor (if any) conforms             N/A         (4)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
14  N    Prevent obvious errors                               NO
      N    prevent posting empty article                 NO          (5)
      N    prevent posting only quoted text              NO          (5)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:

(1) It is possible to configure Gnus so that it prompts you whenever you
    are following up an article that has been cross-posted, and so that
    it prompts you whenever the Followup-To header is different from the
    Newsgroups header.  These options provide a useful defence against
    maliciously or accidentally inappropriate Newsgroups and Followup-To
    headers.

(2) Gnus allows you to post an article with an empty "Subject" header.
    Gnus does recognise when the "Subject" header is empty and asks
    whether you really mean to post it, but if you answer "yes" then the
    article is posted anyway.

(3) Gnus allows you to post an article with a "From" header containing a
    syntactically invalid e-mail address.  Gnus does recognise when the
    "From" header is bogus and asks whether you really mean to post it,
    but if you answer "yes" then the article is posted anyway.

(4) Gnus uses the editing facilities of Emacs, so has no external
    editor.

(5) The documentation says that these errors should be tested for and
    detected, but they aren't.  Presumably this is a bug that will be
    fixed in later releases.

-- 
Gareth Rees
------- End of forwarded message -------

Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15

[Steven L. Baur]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no> writes:

> 
> *sob*  
> 
> Gnus didn't pass.  So I think I'll have to make Gnus a bit stricter. 
...
> Gnus fails the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval for the following
> reasons.
> 
>   * You can post an article with an empty "Subject" header.

This is a feature.  There are braindamaged installations of listserv
or listproc that get very confused and spit garbage back at you if you
put in a subject.

-- 
steve@miranova.com baur
Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be proofread for $250/hour.

Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

"Steven L. Baur" <steve@miranova.com> writes:

> > Gnus fails the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval for the following
> > reasons.
> > 
> >   * You can post an article with an empty "Subject" header.
> 
> This is a feature.  There are braindamaged installations of listserv
> or listproc that get very confused and spit garbage back at you if you
> put in a subject.

This checking is done only when sending news, not mail.  

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen

Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15

[d. hall]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

// thus on 27 Mar 1996 05:11:55 +0000, Lars virtually wrote:

Lars> *sob* Gnus didn't pass.  So I think I'll have to make Gnus a bit
Lars> stricter.

IMHO Gnus should incorporate the ``strict subject'' and newsgroups check in
force only if gnus-interactive-post is set to non-nil.  Or else do we have
to remove it totally from the gnus-check-before-posting alist in order to
remove this big brother influence?

d.
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-- 
              ``And isn't it ironic... don't you think
         A little too ironic... and yeah I really do think...''

                                ~ alanis morissette, ironic

Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

dhall@illusion.apk.net (d. hall) writes:

> IMHO Gnus should incorporate the ``strict subject'' and newsgroups check in
> force only if gnus-interactive-post is set to non-nil.  Or else do we have
> to remove it totally from the gnus-check-before-posting alist in order to
> remove this big brother influence?

`gnus-check-before-posting' is obsolete now, of course.
`message-syntax-checks' is eerily similar, though.

`gnus-interactive-post' is also obsolete.

But yes, if you don't like Big Sister checking your posts for you, you
must fiddle with `message-syntax-checks'.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen

Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15

[Russ Allbery]

A request:  Please do not require that the From: line is verifiably the
user's mail address.  Not only does that cause all sorts of problems with
strange e-mail setups, but I use Gnus to simulate three different accounts
with one account (for mail splitting purposes) and I'd really hate to lose
the ability to do that.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@cs.stanford.edu)      <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Russ Allbery <eagle@cyclone.Stanford.EDU> writes:

> A request:  Please do not require that the From: line is verifiably the
> user's mail address. 

No, that's impossible.  What Gnus does require now is that the From
line is valid syntactically.  

From: (whohee-

is illegal, as is

From: larsi@.ifi.uio.no

And so on.

Gnus will not complain on

From: god@heaven.org

but it will (silently) add a Sender header that contains what Gnus
believes to be a more correct address.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen

Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15

[Russ Allbery]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no> writes:
> Russ Allbery <eagle@cyclone.Stanford.EDU> writes:

>> A request:  Please do not require that the From: line is verifiably the
>> user's mail address. 

> No, that's impossible.  What Gnus does require now is that the From
> line is valid syntactically.  

That's cool.  The reason why I brought it up is that I believe it's one of
the questions in the GNKSA test.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@cs.stanford.edu)      <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Russ Allbery <eagle@cyclone.Stanford.EDU> writes:

> >> A request:  Please do not require that the From: line is verifiably the
> >> user's mail address. 
> 
> > No, that's impossible.  What Gnus does require now is that the From
> > line is valid syntactically.  
> 
> That's cool.  The reason why I brought it up is that I believe it's one of
> the questions in the GNKSA test.

It is, but failing to verify the From line isn't a "flunking" item.  

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen

Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15

[Gareth Rees]

Russ Allbery <rra@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> I believe [that the requirement that the From: line is verifiably the
> user's mail address is] one of the questions in the GNKSA test.

It is, but it is not a requirement to pass the test, because no
newsreader on any popular operating system can hope to get it right.
Obviously, one aspect of getting it right would be to know when a user
has several mail addresses.