Rita -
Charlie Reece forwarded your announcement to me, and I looked
at the web page. It's clear you (plural?) have given this a
lot of thought.
I don't see security mentioned on the page. Security is
critical, and I hope you have plans not shown on this page
that are well integrated with the features shown. If there
is any chance for us to get away from replayable passwords,
I would urge you to take it.
I don't see Linux mentioned on the page. I am sure Linux
users will cope no matter what you do, but I will keep my
eye out for any easy changes that will make life easier or
better for us.
Additional GNU programs to add to the list: bash, less.
Maybe gawk, bison, find, and g77 as well. Don't forget
TeX, xdvi, or xpdf, and there is a new menagerie of tools
springing up to support html. I won't push hard for _any_
of these, because I have them available on my independently
supported (Linux) workstation and don't use the central
systems much.
Commercial programs: should Motif be on that list?
The existing "setup" utility is a performance disaster.
I hope you can come up with something better at the same
time as you move to support sh and related shells.
Does the current or proposed mail system support pop-mail
for non *nix users?
Notes on form rather than content: Please _don't_ send
me a paper copy. If I want hardcopy I have a perfectly
good "print" button on my web browser. When you put
something like the skeleton .login on a web page, the
best html construct is <pre>.
Thanks for listening. If you want to discuss anything,
please give me a jingle. I will continue to ponder the
subject, in particular the Linux (non?)integration question.
- Larry