Fix from main trunk, 2000-10-13 10:30 levitte:

Make the new conf implementatoin bug-compatible with the old one.
Actually, it's a feature that it goes looking at environment
variables.  It's just a pity that it's at the cost of the error
checking...  I'll see if I can come up with a better interface for
this.

Fix from main trunk, 2000-10-16 15:08  ben:

Always return a value.