On 21 Jun 1999, Chris Jones wrote:

: matthew> i installed this a few weeks ago and it's great.  it looks
: matthew> exactly like our w(1) except that it ignores utmp and uses
: matthew> the process list to find out who is doing what on which tty!
: matthew> most excellent.
: 
: Cool.  But there's definitely a reason that these programs (xterm,
: screen, etc.) allow users to not create utmp entries.

There's also a reason some of us admins don't want lusers to see us online
without requiring some degree of tedium.  Sure, I wouldn't mind the
process-based tty list to be a command line option of w(1), but as default,
`yecch.'  I'm also Very Glad that talk(1) won't even attempt to talk to
someone not in utmp.  (My .screenrc has `deflogin off' for a reason.  :)

-- 
-- Todd Vierling (tv@pobox.com)