tin (newsreader)

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tin
Screenshot showing tin's threading of a topic
Tin Newsreader - Threading
Developed by Urs Janßen
Latest release Stable 1.8.3; Unstable 1.9.3 / Stable February 1, 2007, Unstable May 6, 2008
OS Unix, Linux, Mac OS X, OpenVMS
Genre news client
License BSD
Website www.tin.org


tin is an open source text-based and threaded news client. It is available for a variety of Unix-like operating systems. It is based on TASS newsreader, whose source code had been posted in 1991 on USENET by Rich Skrenta.[1] tin was begun shortly afterwards by Iain Lea,[2] who provided information for the IETF RFC 2980.[3][4] Since 1996 tin has been maintained by Urs Janßen.

The program is generally compared with trn or nn.[5][6][7] Some note that tin has the most flexible threading support.[7]

tin runs on any UNIX or POSIX platform. This is because tin was an early adopter of autoconf, in 1996. Older versions of tin also ran on OpenVMS;[8] the newer versions which have UTF-8 support do not.

The original tin used termcap. Along with the portability improvements gained by using autoconf, its developers improved the adaptability by making it work with terminfo or curses — again improving portability. Other changes, such as localization using gettext, as well as IPv6 support have kept the application current.

Unlike trn or nn, it is easy to follow the progress of changes since 1995 in tin because its changelog is detailed, and dated.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Rick Skrenta (April 18, 1991). "Tass 3.2 newsreader". newsgroup alt.sources newsgroup. (Web link).
  2. ^ Iain Lea (August 24, 1991). "ANNOUNCEMENT: tin v1.00 - YAN (Yet Another Newsreader)". news.software.readers. (Web link).
  3. ^ Barber, Stan (1996). Common NNTP Extensions (draft 4).
  4. ^ Barber, Stan (October 2000). RFC 2980 Common NNTP Extensions.
  5. ^ Savetz, Kevin (1996). Your Internet Consultant - The FAQs of Life Online — 5.10. What program should I use to read news?. Sams Publishing.
  6. ^ Parker, Tim (1996). Linux System Administrator's Survival Guide. Same.
  7. ^ a b Kirch, Olaf; Terry Dawson (2000). Linux Network Administrators Guide &mdash. O'Reilly, Chapter 24. Newsreader Configuration. 
  8. ^ Dickey, Thomas E (April 2001), “TIN-1-4-4”, OpenVMS Freeware CDs V5.0, <http://vms.tuwien.ac.at/freeware/TIN-1-4-4/> 

[edit] External links

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