From twpierce@midway.uchicago.edu Fri Feb 9 10:45 CST 1996 X-Sender: perrier@alix X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.2 (32) Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Fri, 09 Feb 1996 15:21:13 +0100 To: twpierce@midway.uchicago.edu From: Christian Perrier Subject: GNKS/A evaluation of Forte Free Agent 1.0.82 Cc: rnewman@mit.edu, freenix-ldp@freenix.fr, freenix@keltia.frmug.fr.net, leslie@forte.com Resent-To: twpierce@bio-3.bsd.uchicago.edu Resent-Date: Fri, 9 Feb 96 10:44:46 CST Resent-From: Tim Pierce Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Length: 8843 Subject: Results of my evaluation of Forte Free Agent 1.0.82 newsreader for MS-Windows The software as reviewed fails the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval for the following reasons : 1) Article headers are not shown by default 2) Followup-To: poster is absolutely *NOT* respected (at least in the default configuration : I didn't checked all configuration options, but am quite sure that there is no way to properly handle this). 3) Posting articles with an empty subject is possible. 4) Syntactical validity checking of From and Reply-To adresses is incomplete. Using non FQDN adresses (like bubulle@bubhome) is possible without notification. Some other points, though not required by GNKS/A could be improved : 1) The default attribution line for followups could mention the original article Message-Id. 2) Some warnings around posts with lines longer than 80 chars could be added. 3) Obvious errors like posting empty articles or articles with only quoted text should be prevented. ------------------------------------------------- Subject: The detailed evaluation checklist Req Itm Sub- Item rd? ## Description item OK? OK? Notes Y 1 Display all essential header info NO Y default is to display NO 1) 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 /= From: YES Y 2 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 Y 3 Implement cross-posting YES Y allow user specification YES Y cross-post (not multi-post) YES Y 4 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 Y allow followup-to: poster YES Y change Reply-To YES Y 5 Correct Subject headers in flwup/rply YES Y a) prepend "Re: " (exactly!) YES Y b) preserve entire Subject YES Y even subjects > 80 chars long YES Y 6 Respect Followup-To NO Y use to initialize Newsgroups: in flwup YES Y recognize and act on 'poster' NO 2) Y 7 Followups contain References YES Y contains message-id of original YES Y never truncate individual message-id YES N contains three Refs from original YES N contains entire Refs of original YES Y 8 Direct email reply to Reply-To YES Y 9 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 3) Y 10 Subject is mandatory NO Y do not post empty or provide NO 4) Y allow change while editing body YES Y 11 Must provide valid From: header NO Y syntactically valid NO 5) N belongs to the user NO 6) Y 12 Must provide cancel YES Y of own articles YES Y *not* of others YES 7) N 13 Respect line length, and post WYSIWYG NO N line brks shown are present when posted YES N do *not* post paragraph w/o line brks YES N warn if body has lines > 80 chars NO 8) N external editor conforms N/A N 14 Prevent obvious errors NO N prevent posting empty article NO N prevent posting only quoted text NO ------------------------------------------------- Subject: Notes to the checklist First a short description of what the columns in this checklist stand for: Reqrd?: A "Y" means that the item or subitem is a MUST for the software in order to get the Good Net-Keeping Seal Approval. ITM ##: This is the item number in the GNKS document Description: Follow the above link to the original document for a more detailed description and an explanation of the rationale behind it. Subitem OK ?: Item OK?: If the item is required, this is marked "YES" if all _required_ subitems are ok. If it is _not_ required, it is marked "YES" if if _all_ subitems are ok. Notes: These are given below: 1) Absolutely _no_ headers are shown by default 2) When trying to folloup an article with Followup-To: poster set up, Free Agent defaults to a follwup in a group named...."poster". :-(. Of course, every well-behaved news server will reject such a post, but then nothing in Free Agent may explain the error to the user. 3) This is not the default attribution line (which only gives author identification) but is very easy to setup. 4) I tried to post with an empty subject. I didn't received any warning from FA. Of course, my news server refused the post. I thus conclude that with a news server which would accept an empty subject, it could have been posted. 5) Some syntax checking is conducted. The user is warned when trying to use things like "bubulle", "bubulle@", "bubulle@.bubhome.fr", "bubulle@bubhome@fr", but adresses with non fully qualified domain names like "bubulle@bubhome" are accepted without notification. A correct news server software (say, INN...:-)) will refuse this for the from field but accepts it for the reply-to field. 6) This may be considered impossible on a Dos platform. 7) This is feasible, but not easily. One has to pick up the email address/Real name of the original author and then configure FA to use it. IMHO this is a consequence of the impossibility of checking email adresses (maybe a check of the Organization field could be added?). Thus, I consider that in a normal use, it is not possible to cancel articles posted by others. 8) The default wrapping margin is "correctly" setup at 70 characters. It is possible to change it to anything else without warning about Netiquette or something like this. It could imho be improved. On the other hand, even with the 70 characters default, it is possible to post wider article without notifications (by making lines without spaces). A warning would also be a good idea there. -- Christian Perrier, DI/CCI ONERA, BP72, 92322 Chatillon Cedex FRANCE Office: +33-1-4673.4438 Fax: +33-1-4673.4150 From twpierce@midway.uchicago.edu Mon Apr 15 10:15 CDT 1996 Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 10:10:22 +0100 From: rik@uto.dec.com (Mostly Harmless) To: twpierce@midway.uchicago.edu, perrier@onera.fr Subject: Free Agent's GNKS/A X-Vms-To: smtp%"twpierce@midway.uchicago.edu", smtp%"perrier@onera.fr" X-Vms-Cc: RIK Resent-To: twpierce@bio-3.bsd.uchicago.edu Resent-Date: Mon, 15 Apr 96 10:15:41 CDT Resent-From: Tim Pierce Content-Type: text Content-Length: 781 Christian writes: >2) Followup-To: poster is absolutely *NOT* respected (at least in >the default configuration : I didn't checked all configuration >options, but am quite sure that there is no way to properly >handle this) It also appears that Free Agent errs when posting an article with 'Followup-To: poster' set; at least my newsserver rejected the article with an unknown newsgroup error. If there's a way around this (which I doubt), it's far from obvious. I have sent mail to Forte about this, the other issues mentioned on your web-page (I'm sure I'm not the first to do so ...), and a few annoyances I found during use. Rik Steenwinkel @ UTO Digital Equipment Co. VAXmail: HLDE01::STEENWINKEL Internet: steenwinkel@hlde01.enet.dec.com or rik@uto.