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 15:37:41 +0100 To: twpierce@midway.uchicago.edu From: Christian Perrier Subject: GNKS/A evaluation of WinVN 0.99.7 Cc: rnewman@mit.edu, freenix-ldp@freenix.fr, freenix@keltia.frmug.fr.net, winvn@titan.ksc.nasa.gov 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: 7270 Hi again again Tim (and hi again again others! And hi first to people in WinVN list...:-)), Below is the debugged version of my GNKS/A evaluation of WinVN 0.99.7. For people (mainly in the WinVN list) not familiar with GNKS/A, it may be read at http://www.media.mit.edu/people/rnewman/Good_Netkeeping_Seal. GNKS/A evaluations of several news reading software may be seen on Tim Pierce's home page at http://http.bsd.uchicago.edu/~twpierce/news/index.html WinVN was already present on Tim's page (I made the evaluation several weeks ago when 0.99.7 version came out). Below is a cleaning of this with some simplifications. -----------cut here------------------- Subject: Results of my evaluation of WinVN 0.99.7 The software as reviewed fails the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval for the following reason : 1) No syntax check on From: and Reply-To: adresses. See note 4) below for more explanations about WinVN authors/contributors position (remember that WinVN is a cooperative work based on freely available source code originated from NASA) Some other points could slightly be improved : 1) Prevent posting of only quoted text 2) Really standard terminology for "Reply" ------------------------------------------------- Subject: The detailed evaluation checklist Req Itm Sub- Item rd? ## Description item OK? OK? Notes Y 1 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 /= 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 NO 1) 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 NYES Y use to initialize Newsgroups: in flwup YES Y recognize and act on 'poster' YES 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 2) Y identifies author YES 2) N gives message-id YES 2) Y 10 Subject is mandatory Y do not post empty or provide YES 3) Y allow change while editing body YES Y 11 Must provide valid From: header NO Y syntactically valid NO 4) N belongs to the user NO 5) Y 12 Must provide cancel YES Y of own articles YES Y *not* of others YES N 13 Respect line length, and post WYSIWYG YES 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 YES N external editor conforms N/A N 14 Prevent obvious errors NO N prevent posting empty article YES 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) The terminology is not completely standard. "Followup Mail" is used for "Reply". As I'm the author of a (actually non public) french translation of WinVN, I preferred to be more specific and mention "Repondre par mail (en prive)" which means "Answer by mail (private)". Anyway, I'm here speaking of the public english version of WinVN 2) With default options. 3) Mandatory. 4) I suggested authors adding a syntax check. Jim Dumoulin who coordinates WinVN development efforts argued that the software is very widely used at NASA for internal use where non FQDN adresses are "legal". Thus a From/Reply-To syntax check may not be added to the "normal" WinVN (WinVN is historically a "NASA project" and thus keeping it satisfying NASA users needs first is pertinent (imho, at least). Of course, as WinVN sources are freely available, anyone may hack them and add a syntax check. I will try again to ask WinVN contributors if this could become a configurable option (ON by default). 5) Let's consider this impossible on a Dos/Windows platform. -- Christian Perrier, DI/CCI ONERA, BP72, 92322 Chatillon Cedex FRANCE Office: +33-1-4673.4438 Fax: +33-1-4673.4150