Re: [Pan-users] Character code page used in Pan (old) postings

[Duncan]

Maurice Batey posted on Sat, 11 Feb 2012 19:37:12 +0000 as excerpted:

> I'm having a puzzling time with code pages in 'old' Pan.
> 
> After years with no apparent problem in that area, out of the blue last
> week I had a response (In the Mozilla Thunderbird NG) as follows:
> 
>     "Your Pan newsreader broke/folded my gmail help link.  Tb wouldn't
>       do that.

At this point, I'd say it's hit or miss whether you'll find anyone here 
still using the old version.  I kept the old binary around for years, in 
ordered to answer questions about it, but even that's been deleted some 
time ago now at this point, after I hadn't seen any list mention of it 
for I'd guess 18 months or more.  Thus, while anyone is of course free to 
continue using it since it's freedomware, they'll pretty much have to be 
technical enough or low demanding enough to be their own support.

Given that the last previously unimplemented pre-C++ pan feature (rules 
based automated actions) now has a replacement in the live-git version 
(I'm not sure it has made it to release, tho I'd guess it should, 
sometime this year), and that there's now long awaited support for gpg 
message signing and encryption, encrypted SSL connections, and attachment 
posting, there's hardly reason left to continue using the old version 
(tho I guess I could understand waiting until a release version has 
actions, which I'd expect this year).

But... seeing as you do still use old-pan and there's a potential if low-
demand need for support, it'd be great if you could volunteer to be that 
support person, or at least a contact person for anyone still using old-
pan.  Mainly, that'd involve watching the list for posts such as yours 
about old-pan, and responding to them as best you could.  (It doesn't 
take a developer to do that, I've been doing it for pan in general, on 
this list, for years.)  If you're upto it, it's likely that the 
pan.rebelbase web site could even list you as the contact person for 
people still interested in old-pan.

Who knows?  Perhaps there's more old-pan users than I think, and they've 
just been silent since there's no reason to ask questions about something 
they're familiar with that's no longer changing, as long as it continues 
to work.  With a dedicated contact person organizing things, it's 
possible they'll come out of the woodwork and the old-pan code will be 
reactivated, with a new maintainer appearing to keep it at least building 
on newer systems (which is how khaley started after Charles left, it grew 
from there!), etc.  =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman