From: S_TITZ@iravcl.ira.uka.de (Olaf Titz)
Subject: Pragmatic approach to .plan (Re: Let's try a different tack...)
Organization: Fachschaft Informatik, Uni Karlsruhe
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 18:46:25 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.23

In <1992Oct5.180715.11666@panix.com> eck@panix.com writes:

>  >>    "The institution has a right, on the other hand, to reasonably
>  >>    regulate this expression as to time, place, and manner of
>  >>    expression so as to prevent disruption of the educationally
>  >>    process or interference with the rights of others, and prevent
>  >>    placing persons or property in danger."
>  >
>  >This would seem to provide an adequate basis for reasonable restrictions
>  >on what can be placed in '.plan'.
>  
>  Wrong on two counts:
>  
>  1) Time/place/manner restrictions must be content-neutral.

A limit of (e.g.) 20 lines for plan files *is* content-neutral and
matches the definition given above. I would consider that appropriate,
more on that below.

>  2) It confounds logic to assert that the contents of a .plan file
>  disrupt the educational process, interfere with anyone's rights, or
>  imperil persons or property,

You surely don't want to finger a plan file that contains the right
escape sequence to reprogram your terminal's Return key to 
'rm -rf ~/* [return]', do you? This surely would interfere with your
rights, wouldn't it? It could even imperil your property, or couldn't
it? What about some nasty code embedded in plan files that erases your
master thesis files one week before completion? You really should
agree that there *is* a limit somewhere...

But now...

I don't understand the heated debate about .plan files. Why not take
the pragmatic approach and say, "Look people, you know what plan files
are for - giving out information about the user, the project she's
working on or similar things; and you supposedly have used a finger
command yourselves already; now look what do YOU expect to find in a
plan file?"

I expect the following:
- At most 20 lines of text. I don't want to scroll the output away so
I cannot read it, and what I want to read from finger is not that
much.
- A plain text file, no special formatting, no escape codes, no
binaries linked or whatever. 
- The content should be informational; I want to read about the user's
occupation, advertising for the project she's currently working on,
Phone or Fax or Email addresses, pointers to persons to contact if she
is away and so on. HOWEVER this is MY opinion only and every user may
put into her plan what she wants, IMO. (Apart from the usual
restrictions: what you should not post to USENET, e.g. libelous
insults or the like, you should not place in plan files either.)

Now I ask if that are restrictions you can't live with! If I say,
"please shorten your 350-line plan file", you really should not cry
"You try to impose censorship on plan files!", you should rather ask:
"Why?" and let me explain the issue.

An example: The following used to be my plan file. [Until the
operating system got updated - its-all-not-that-easy-VMS - and the new
one didn't have a finger server, so you need not try to finger me :-(]

------------------------------------------------
Olaf Titz, Karlsruhe/Germany, Tel. +49-721-60439
Email: s_titz@iravcl.ira.uka.de or uknf@dkauni2.bitnet

ircle [pronounced irk-le] - a small IRC client for the Macintosh.
Currently in beta testing, version 0.4.7 available from
sumex-aim.stanford.edu: /info-mac/comm
and associated mirrors.

" System debugging has always been a graveyard-shift occupation, like
  astronomy. Twenty years ago, on the 701, I was initiated into the 
  productive informality of the predawn hours, when all the machine-room
  bosses are fast asleep at home, and the operators are disinclined to be
  sticklers for rules. Three machine generations have passed; technologies
  have changed totally; operating systems have arisen; and yet this
  preferred method of working hasn't changed. It endures because it is
  most productive. The time has come to recognize its productivity and
  embrace the fruitful practice openly. "
Fred Brooks, The Mythical Man-Month, 1975
-------------------------------------------------

(The -------s were not part of the plan file.)

This contains email addresses, information on what I'm working on
[obsolete now, you can get ircle 1.0 :-)] and a snippet of text I like
to quote. (If someone had told me, "Leave out the Brooks quote, we
want project information ONLY", I had left it out and tried to talk
with him over the issue instead of posting on USENET: "U Karlsruhe
censors plan files!" Something like that did NOT happen, though.)

Restrictions != censorship. If there are reasons for that
restrictions, they *may* be O.K. Hopefully you see the difference
between the plan file issue in my view and, e.g., the cancelling of
certain newsgroups because of *content*. (If I had a campus news
server running on a Sun-3 and said, "Look people, we cannot carry
binaries groups because we don't have the storage for them", they
should not cry censorship. If I said to them, "We don't carry sex
groups because my wife's a feminist", they really *should* cry
censorship. Agreed?)

The restrictions I proposed for plan files are all either technical or
based on reasonable assumptions about their purpose. Not a big fuss to
make about.

MfG,
        Olaf
-- 
    o     Olaf Titz - comp.sc.student - univ of karlsruhe - germany
 _ /<_    s_titz@iravcl.ira.uka.de - uknf@dkauni2.bitnet - praetorius@irc
(_)>(_)   +49-721-60439 - did i forget something?
What high-level language should one use for system programming? The only
 reasonable candidate today is PL/I. - Fred Brooks (1975)