Re: COM zone and serials

[woods () most weird com (Greg A. Woods)]

[ On Wed, September 16, 1998 at 20:11:28 (-0400), John Hawkinson wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: COM zone and serials
>
> For instance, traceroute that differs from the canonical version
> (ftp.ee.lbl.gov).

Although the verions of traceroute at ftp.ee.lbl.gov may be the root of
all traceroutes, I'd never consider it to be the most portable one.

That said though I must admit I've stopped using Eric's version of
traceroute in favour of the version that comes with NetBSD.  However in
the days I was still using SunOS-4 on my primary server(s), Eric's
version was enormously better than the LBL version, and much easier to
get working.

> "host" that differs from any of the canonical versions (like that
> distributed with bind), etc., etc.

I think you'll find the 'host' in the "tools" sub-directory of the BIND
distribution is an extremely ancient predecessor to the version Eric
maintains and that the one in the "contrib/host" sub-directory is in
fact a slightly out-of-date version of Eric's host(1).

I.e. Eric's host(1) *is* the "canonical" version.

> I think promulgating their usage as long as they conflict in name
> with more popular versions of the same programs is A Poor Idea.

What you call a "canonical" version simply may be the "original
predecessor".  Even I maintain and distribute enhanced versions of
programs that originally came from elsewhere (eg. fingerd, newsyslog,
etc.).  I rarely, if ever, change their names (though usually I give the
distribution tar archive a different version name :-).

"Use what works.  Use what works best."

-- 
                                                        Greg A. Woods

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