Newshound and Eternal September

Is this still being worked on?
It would be good to be able to use Eternal September with NewsHound.

Is this still being worked on?
bq. It would be good to be able to use Eternal September with NewsHound.

What is your issue? It’s working fine here and has been fine for a very longtime now.

I’m unable to download any news articles or an active newsgroup list, when looking in the NewsHound log file, the following message repeats over and over;
010 Unexpected response 481 (Invalid credentials)

I’ve checked my username and password is correct, I can login to the eternal-september website and the same credentials work on an iPad News app.

I’m using the version of NewsHound that comes with NetFetch 5.53. This is version 1.52-32 14-Dec-2010

I’m using the version of NewsHound that comes with NetFetch 5.53. This is version 1.52-32 14-Dec-2010

I am using Netfetch 5.53 but with newshound v1.54 (25 Apr 21) This works fine both ways.

Are you using port 119 i.e. news.eternal-september.org:119,user name, password

newshound v1.54 (25 Apr 21)

Interesting… The last commits to the project’s repo were for the 1.52 release which I made in 2010.

Is the source for 1.54 available anywhere?

Are you using port 119 i.e. news.eternal-september.org:119,user name, password

Yes, looking in !NetFetch.Choices.Accounts, there is a line that reads nntp_server=news.eternal-september.org:119,myusername,mypassword

Is NewsHound 1.54 available anywhere?

Yes, looking in !NetFetch.Choices.Accounts, there is a line that reads nntp_server=news.eternal-september.org:119,myusername,mypassword

Also check the config file within newshound also has the port 119. Thats where mine picks up the logon from.

Interesting? The last commits to the project?s repo were for the 1.52 release which I made in 2010.

Yes, just been to the sourceforge page and it’s listing 1.52 from 2010

I think it was David Higton who fixed newshound when this issue first occured. I know a copy was sent to R-Comp for them to use in NetFetch I believe. (I do not know if they did use it or not) I believe David found a number of other bugs within Newshound. This is all from memory.

I also note Joseph Heenan website not been updated since 2006

Also check the config file within newshound also has the port 119. Thats where mine picks up the logon from.

Is this in the file !NewsHound.Config.Config? – As I can’t see any reference to port 119 in there.

Looking in !NewsHound.Config.dunGroup, this has the following;

1. News server hostname:
   <inet$NNTPserver>

I also note Joseph Heenan website not been updated since 2006

Yes, you can find the discussion on that at the head of this thread.

I suppose I’m just surprised that, given what Joseph said back here about Dave having commit access to the SourceForge project, the sources for 1.54 appear not to have made their way back into the repo a couple of years after the date given in the application. There’s no requirement for them to have done so, as the code is BSD licenced, but as an application which several folk have now touched and contributed to, it would be good if the latest versions remained “open”. That way, Dave’s fixes can be built on by others in the future.

I’m also not clear how one gets a copy of the built 1.54 as a user?

I’m using version 1.52 (32Bit) of Newshound dated 2010 and I have eternal-september configured and running ok.

The config is in !NewsHound.Config.dunGroup. This is mine:

1. NewsHound news server group file
2. Automatically Created on Thu Aug 17 10:51:41 2000
   #
3. Rule file name:
   Global
4. News server hostname:
   news.eternal-september.org:119,myusername,my password
5. Last new groups time
   NEWGROUPS
6. Newsgroups:
   comp.sys.acorn.advocacy 36
   comp.sys.acorn.announce 2523
   comp.sys.acorn.apps 26660
   comp.sys.acorn.hardware 12443
   comp.sys.acorn.misc 27575
   comp.sys.acorn.networking 7834

Sorry, been out and about while this thread was brewing…

I made some improvements to Newshound and passed the resulting binaries back to Andrew Rawnsley. At that stage I really didn’t think about the distribution; I (wrongly) regarded the app as his.

Andrew asked for the sources, but his request kept slipping my memory until a few weeks ago. I also passed the sources on to someone else to be put into source control.

This is clearly an unsatisfactory response from me, and I apologise. Let’s see if the position on Newshound’s availability (binaries and sources) improves over the next few days, when the pressure and consequences of the Bradford show sort themselves out.

Let’s see if the position on Newshound’s availability (binaries and sources) improves over the next few days

If you need assistance committing them back to the Sourceforge repo, I’m still happy to help – I assume my login still works.

Let’s see if the position on Newshound’s availability (binaries and sources) improves over the next few days, when the pressure and consequences of the Bradford show sort themselves out.

Having been reminded of this from a discussion elsewhere, I take it that the hoped-for improvement never materialised?

If you need assistance committing the changes made back to the Sourceforge repo, I’m still happy to help – I assume my login still works.

I’ve just found this helpful thread as I can’t post to newsgroups on Eternal September with Newshound 1.52. Can anyone tell me where I can download the amended version of Newshound (1.54) from?

This is clearly an unsatisfactory response from me, and I apologise. Let’s see if the position on Newshound’s availability (binaries and sources) improves over the next few days, when the pressure and consequences of the Bradford show sort themselves out.

Did they ever sort themselves out post-Bradford?

I very rarely post to newsgroups but do read them fairly frequently. So hadn’t appreciated the issue when i posted (further up). So yes NH 1.52 will allow you to read newsgroups via eternal-september but you can’t reply / post, as I’ve recently discovered.

Therefore, I too would be very interested in obtaining a copy of V1.54 if it’s at all possible. Quite happy to accept it on a ‘use at my own risk basis’.

Any news ?

I’ve emailed you a copy, and I’ve emailed Andrew Rawnsley and Joseph Heenan in the hope that we can clear up distribution.

Did they ever sort themselves out post-Bradford?

No. I’m having another go.

If you need assistance committing the changes made back to the Sourceforge repo, I’m still happy to help

Is the SF repo the One True Place™ from which NH should be obtained, both binaries and sources?

I’ve emailed you a copy, and I’ve emailed Andrew Rawnsley and Joseph Heenan in the hope that we can clear up distribution.

I’ve got it. Many thanks, much appreciated shall have a play and let you know how I get on.

Is the SF repo the One True Place™ from which NH should be obtained, both binaries and sources?

It’s not really my call, but I don’t see any reason why the source changes couldn’t be pushed back to that Git repo, at least. The history is all in one place that way.

Of course, Git being Git, it’s always possible to clone the repo and put the lot somewhere else like a GitHub or GitLab account.

ETA: I think it’s all in a Git repo. I’ve got 1.52 in a Git repo here (which I’m assuming is a clone of the SF one), and I seem to remember converting the CVS into Git at some point.

ETA: I think it’s all in a Git repo. I’ve got 1.52 in a Git repo here (which I’m assuming is a clone of the SF one)

So this is a fork?

NH has a “Web site” button that goes to Joseph Heenan’s site, from which 1.52 can be obtained. Do you want to take over as maintainer? (I don’t – I’ve made a positive contribution, but I don’t want the maintainer’s job.)

Maybe Joseph would like to let it go – then one of us could make a version 1.55 pointing at your site (I understand that Git is no use for distrinuting binaries), or !Store, and Joseph could update his site to point at the same place(s)?

So this is a fork?

Eh? I’ve got a clone of what I believe is the SourceForge Git repo here, which is in step with that repo to the best of my knowledge¹. One of the joys of Git is that you can do that, so as to avoid putting all of your eggs in a Cloud provider’s basket. I have local remotes of all of my GitHub repos, for exactly the same reason, and push changes to both.

Do you want to take over as maintainer?

No, not really. All that I’m asking is what 1.54 is and where it came from, in terms of source code history.

Back in 2010 I made some changes, built 1.52 and pushed the new source back to what at the time was a CVS repository on SF. At some point later on², possibly when you enquired about the availability of the source, I converted the CVS repo into Git so that it could be accessed after SF had removed CVS support. This was done in my capacity as someone other than Joseph who had admin access to the repo.

Later still, 1.54 appears to have become available to R-Comp customers, but there’s no sign of the source changes being pushed back to SF or published anywhere else. In the absence of any information to the contrary, I’m assuming that 1.54 is based on the code from 1.52.

Obviously there’s no requirement for those changes to be pushed back. When software has previously been maintained by community effort, however, it just seems like the “right” thing for later developers to do to ensure that anyone wishing to follow them has the same opportunity that they did.

Note that I’m not even precluding R-Comp making money from this. I don’t really care if the built binary is only available from them as part of a package — I’m willing to bet that most of their target audience are unlikely to be building NewsHound from source.

I’d just like to see the sources for the changes made available to all, in the same way that I made the changes for 1.52 available for all. I can’t force you or R-Comp to do this, of course, but as someone who frequently preaches the GPL, Dave, I’m sure that you understand where I’m coming from.

Maybe Joseph would like to let it go – then one of us could make a version 1.55 pointing at your site (I understand that Git is no use for distrinuting binaries), or !Store, and Joseph could update his site to point at the same place(s)?

Maybe? It’s not something that I ever discussed with him. If there’s a will to resolve this from yourself and Andrew, then I’m happy to assist in discussions: it wouldn’t be the first piece of third-party software that found a home on my site.

ETA: SourceForge has always supported release binary downloads, and 1.52 is still available from there. So the other option is just to push the ready-built 1.54 into the releases folder of SourceForge. Again, I’m happy to assist with working out the best thing to do if needed.

¹ I’ve now checked, and my repo appears to be identical to the one on SF. It finishes in commit d68d1ce, which was 1.52.

² My local copy of the repo says it’s “3 years” old, so it was probably around then.

Obviously there’s no requirement for those changes to be pushed back.

Seems to me that the “requirement” is best expressed not in terms of laws or morals, but simply…

…if somebody adds new features or fixes bugs and they’re not doing it with the most recent sources, who’s going to sort out the disparities?

If something is/was publicly available, then it’s in everybody’s interests to keep it that way, surely? And there’s your “requirement”. ;)