On Wed, Aug 28, 2002 at 12:46:58PM -0400, Jim Wise wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Aug 2002, David Maxwell wrote:
> 
> >On Tue, Aug 27, 2002 at 04:50:52PM -0700, collver1@attbi.com wrote:
> >> > > - PAM is standard.
> >> >
> >> > "Standard"?  I don't think so.  It's common, but it's far from being a
> >> > real standard.  I wonder if the GNU/Linux implementation can even load
> >> > and use a binary Solaris plugin (assuming it's for the same target CPU).
> >>
> >> PAM is a standard.  http://www.opengroup.org/tech/rfc/mirror-rfc/rfc86.0.txt
> >
> >>From a standards body which I don't believe the NetBSD project has taken
> >a complience stance on.
> >
> >SECAM and PAL are official standards too. That doesn't mean it would be
> >appropriate (or sensible) for me to buy such equipment, rather than
> >NTSC, since I'm in North America.
> 
> With due respect, the reason (and the only reason, I warrant) that you
> would choose NTSC rather than SECAM and PAL hardware is to interact with
> what others are doing -- a very good PAL system would still be next to
> useless to you, as you wouldn't be receiving anything to use it with.

Your comments are true, but they avoid the issue of standards
compliance, and instead push for the adoption of a defacto standard. PAM
may be becoming a defacto standard, but that has nothing to do with the
claim above that "PAM is a standard" - which I would refute, based on it
not coming from (a) a standards body I recognize and (b) a standards
body without enough sense to avoid the obvious namespace conflict over
RFC (Duh!)

> Well, guess what?  The same goes for PAM -- there are a _lot_ of
> projects out there working to integrate PAM with assorted databases,
> network authentication systems (RADIUS, LDAP, NTLM, netinfo, you name
> it) and so forth.  If we adopt PAM, we benefit from all of this.

Network effect is a fine thing to take advantage of, but then why aren't
you running Windows? ;-)

-- 
David Maxwell, david@vex.net|david@maxwell.net -->
(About an Amiga rendering landscapes) It's not thinking, it's being artistic!
					      - Jamie Woods