Playing nice with others

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After a few minutes of searching the archives, I came across a possible
solution to my problem concerning the sharing of the serial line with
both pppd and mgetty.  Part of the thread contained a discussion of the
merits of including some mention in the mgetty docs/FAQ about possible
interactions with other applications trying to access the same serial
line.  Klaus (the FAQ maintainer, I assume) had this to say:

>>I understand your concerns, but if you read your last sentence you
must
admit that you did in fact chose the right line, this wasn't mgetty's
fault. The options.<device> is a ppp-only thing. If we're going to
include all possible pitfalls with all possible programs that one can
imagine will be called by mgetty, this will become e huge Meta-FAQ. I'm
still not convinced that non-mgetty things belong there, except maybe
the (emphasized) note that when mgetty did its job the FAQ did its too
and one should check the corresponding FAQs then.<<

I believe it would be very helpful if the mgetty docs/FAQs made some
mention of possible interactions between mgetty and other serial
applications trying to share the same line.  In my case, the pppd
configuration works just fine when mgetty has been diabled, but refuses
to work when mgetty is brought up.  Even though this might be a pppd
problem, it clearly is mgetty which is the catalyst for the problem.
Clearly, mgetty is introducing some sort of behavior which alters access

to the serial line in otherwise well-behaved applications.

My apologies if this issue has already been hashed out and decided
upon.  I just found the attitude in the original thread similar to that
of a big o/s vendor who will remain nameless but can commonly be heard
quoting the same refrain:  "It's not *our* problem, it must be a problem

with your application."

  --Brian