chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuqui Q. Koala) (01/19/85)
Welcome to net.source.mac. This is a new newsgroup specifically designed
for the posting of public domain sources for Apple's Macintosh computer.
After discussing the possibility of 1) doing nothing, 2) creating this
group, and 3) creating a moderated form called mod.sources.mac I decided
that the standard unmoderated group was the best way to go. The reasonings
are:
. Doing nothing would have caused a fair amount of confusion-- sources
going to either net.sources or net.micro.mac, and no real coordination
between either. A real advantage to putting sources in net.sources.mac
is that systems with small filesystems for news can expire out source
articles (which tend to be significantly longer than other articles)
faster to reduce the chance of disks filling up. This was a significant
problem recently with all of the posted fonts (what, you didn't get the
fonts? see, I told you!). Also, posting sources to net.micro.mac makes
it hard to use that group for what it is designed for-- technical
discussions of the Macintosh.
. Mod.sources.mac was turned down mainly because of the psychological
hindrance of moderating source-- people tend to not post sources for
some reason, perhaps because they are afraid that they don't come up to
whatever quality they expect the moderator is going to look for or
something. I think it is more important, at least at this time, to get
the sources out there for everyone to make their own decisions on than
it is to put some of the other advantages of the moderator to work
(more later).
A few comments:
When you post a program, if source is available please post the source with
it if at all possible. Because of some of the early limitations of the Mac
as a development system this wasn't feasible, but that is rapidly changing.
Binaries are useful, but source will not only make the programs easily
modified but they will help others understand the Mac as well.
If you are NOT the author, please add a note to the posting giving credit
to them (if known) and where you got the program. A lot of stuff seems to
be floating around the net, much of it from Compuserve, that isn't being
properly credited-- some of it may not even be strictly public domain,
either.
If you ARE the author, please note and redistribution restrictions, if any.
if the program is public domain, please state so. We don't want to get into
licensing hassles later.
Please include as part of the package a README style document that explains
how to use the program, how to put it together (is source is available),
who wrote it, where bugs go, etc... This is what we expect from Unix
sources, and we should hold our standards up at least as high. I've seen a
number of programs go by with no documentation at all that really could
have stood some. standard text or macwrite file formats would work fine
here.
Other thoughts:
Depending on traffic, we might want to eventually consider
net.sources.mac.bugs and net.wanted.mac to keep closer sync with
net.sources. For now, place all of these articles in net.micro.mac. As we
start building significant archives (a number of place, including myself,
are doing so) we might consider mod.sources.mac to allow for periodic
repostings of things like macput, macget, and archive listings of available
software. Archive holders can either make this material available for uucp
direct pickup (the Usenet alternative to Arpa FTP) or mail it upon request.
Doing it this way will help minimize unneccessary repostings of source
programs. I hope.
comments welcome, as always. I hope the potentials of this group make
working with the mac and with Unix and Usenet much easier in the future.
chuq
--
From the ministry of silly talks: Chuq Von Rospach
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