On Wed, 22 Oct 2003, Gregory Hicks wrote:
> I think what Mark was saying was that simultaneous access to an mbx
> mailbox from various incarnations of pine MAY not work correctly under
> an MS-DOS implementation of windows.
>
> If only one incarnation of pine is running, the mbx SHOULD be readable.
>
> If your users *insist* on running two or more incarnations of pine to
> access the same mailbox, the results probably will be unpredictable.
This is correct. To be specific:
If you wish to run two or more incarnations of Pine (or other c-client
tool such as imapd) on Windows to access the same mailbox at the same
time, the only means that is promised to work correctly is with a native
Windows (not Cygwin) version, running under Windows NT/2000/XP.
It is probable (but not guaranteed) that two or more incarnations of a
Cygwin build of UNIX Pine (or other c-client software) accessing the same
mailbox at the same time will work correctly under Windows NT/2000/XP.
In any other configuration, the results will be unpredictable, including
*all* configurations involving Windows 3.1/9x/Me (MS-DOS based Windows).
It is possible (but not guaranteed) that a Cygwin build of UNIX Pine (or
other c-client software) accessing the same mailbox at the same time with
PC Pine (or other native Windows build c-client software) accessing the
same mailbox at the same time will work to a limited fashion under Windows
NT/2000/XP. Certain aspects will fail; auxillary locks are handled
differently in UNIX and Windows.
The lessons should be:
1) do not expect simultaneous access to work on systems which do not
provide the tools to make simultaneous access work.
2) do not expect software running under a compatibility package for
a different operating system to interact completely (if at all)
with the native version of that software.
A compatibility package should be seen for what it is -- an interim means
to run software from a foreign operating system. As such, it will have
limitations; and these limitations translate into permanent restrictions
on how the software runs under that compatibility package.
-- Mark --
http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.
