lamy@utai.UUCP (Jean-Francois Lamy) (11/02/85)
> ... Mr Spencer's selfish desire ...
You are missing the point here.
We like net.source.mac because it is FREE, and therefore that we do not
have to pay for CompuServe or BIX or Delphi or
YetAnotherProfitMakingAndExpensiveBBS. Right? Probably very much so.
And we wouldn't be complaining at all if we could all do the magic
"anonymous FTP" from SUMEX. But there Terabuck rich DARPA picks the tab...
But UseNet is not a cost-efficient way of distributing the quantity
and the kind of software like that in net.sources.mac
It may be a very CONVENIENT way, but sending the latest diff patch
for 'rn' and sending a huge mac binary is not quite the same thing
for a site administrator who has to justify the phone bill.
Have you ever wondered how your local Mac user's group got all
those goodies (because they do)? A group I know of gets the stuff from
CompuServe, and shares the cost... Alternately, they get diskettes
in the mail. Consider a site which orders the Info-Mac archive once, and
then arranges to receive diskette based updates from somebody who does
subcribe to a Macware source and contrast the cost of sending 1600Ks (2
diskettes using BinHex) by phone and the 1.00$ postage cost (diskettes
are reusable).
Perhaps we all should organize a local Mac user's group on our machines
(after all, we are all saying that there is a keen interest...).
I guess it would then be o.k. for that group (or yourself if your fellow
mac users let you down) to PAY for a separate net.source.mac feed...
or for the CompuServe costs if all else fails.
The one thing you can't get at your local user's group is the amount of
expertise you can get on a world-wide network. Net.micro.mac should
be for the sharing of that expertise, and a MOD.sources.mac might
be justified for the posting of (short) patches, examples, and
"I tried this and it didn't work" stuff. Nobody will object to
expertise sharing, but there are more cost-efficient ways to
DISTRIBUTE SOFTWARE.
--
Jean-Francois Lamy
Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto,
Departement d'informatique et de recherche operationnelle, U. de Montreal.
CSNet: lamy@toronto.csnet
UUCP: {utzoo,ihnp4,decwrl,uw-beaver}!utcsri!utai!lamy
CDN: lamy@iro.udem.cdn (lamy%iro.udem.cdn@ubc.csnet)