Subject: Re: Help with "limit" option

From: Serge Bezzubov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 19:13:20 +0400

I think developers of the wu-ftpd should pay more attention to its documentation.
I'm sure that the most questions about ftpd configuration are caused by
impossibility to find a comprehensive answer in the manual. I've had a question
about <addrglob> form format (class derective of ftpaccess file), because I
found nothing covering explicitly that format neither in the man pages nor in
the example. However it turned out that's quite simple (thanks to everyone who
replied to me). The question below confirms that I'm right.

Serge

> From [email-masked] Fri Apr 19 17:23 MSD 1996
> Date: Thu, 18 Apr 1996 09:14:48 -0400 (EDT)
> From: "W. James Showalter" <[email-masked]>
> To: FTP Administrator <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Help with "limit" option
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN
> 
> I asked the same question also a couple of weeks ago and never received
> an answer.  Perhaps the answer should be placed in the FAQ since it is
> unique to a particular system but used by wu-ftpd which is on a variety
> of systems.
> 
> Jim
> 
> 
> On Fri, 19 Apr 1996, FTP Administrator wrote:
> 
> > Hi there,
> > I would like to be able to set "limit" option in the ftpaccess file.
> > The format is:   limit <class> <n> <times> <message_file>
> > The related man page says <times> is in same format as the times in the 
> > UUCP L.sys file, but I didn't find this file in our system, nor a helpful 
> > man page.  
> > Anybody help about this format?
> > 
> > Thank you in advance,
> > 
> > Massimo Gais
> > ----
> > FTP Administrator                                        <[email-masked]>
> > C.D.S. - University "Federico II" of Naples (Italy)
> > 
> > 
>

---

From: Andy Ellsworth <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 11:35:52 -0500 (CDT)

On Fri, 19 Apr 1996, Serge Bezzubov wrote:

> I think developers of the wu-ftpd should pay more attention to its
> documentation. I'm sure that the most questions about ftpd configuration
> are caused by impossibility to find a comprehensive answer in the manual. 

[snip]

Forgive me, but I have to jump in and defend some people here.  The author
of the original wu-ftpd (2.4), Bryan O'Connor, is no longer working
on/supporting wu-ftpd, nor has he been for at least a year or so.  The
whole project was done on a grant, and while I'm sure he put considerable 
time and effort into the documentation, his main priority was the coding 
of the daemon itself.  And since he's not around to fix anything with 
wu-ftpd (be it doc-related or otherwise), it's not quite fair to say that 
he should pay more attention to documentation.

The folks at Academ who are currently working on new revisions of wu-ftpd 
aren't exactly to blame either; they keep the code up-to-date with the 
latest features/bug-fixes, but they're hardly responsible for any lack of 
documentation.  Stan and the other folks working on the code have done a 
good job so far of updating the relevant documentation files anytime a 
major change is made.

Your claims about lack of documentation are valid; but then, that's why 
we have things like FAQs and mailing lists.  Granted, a good set of 
documentation should answer almost all of your questions; but there is 
simply no such thing as a perfect manual.  To place the blame on the 
coders for not answering every feasible question beforehand is a bit unfair.

Andy Ellsworth             | "...The wind was not the beginning.  There are
[email-masked]         | neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of
Assistant Admin, wuarchive | the Wheel of Time.  But it was _a_ beginning..."
http://cec.wustl.edu/~are1 |          --The Wheel of Time saga, Robert Jordan