malik@star.DEC (Karl Malik ZK01-1/F22 1-1440) (04/28/84)
Subj; the split AND a suggestion on how to make everyone happy I hesitated before submitting this. I HATE reading about should we or shouldn't we have a split. But maybe, just maybe I have a solution. I'm on the DEC Engineering net and don't know beans about UNIX. Can the following be set-up? net.music (being a superset of all sub-groups) net.music.classical (for people who want JUST classical articles) net.music.rock (for people who want JUST rock articles) net.music.'n' (additional sub-groups can be created as the need arises) Now here's my idea. People subscribing to net.music will get ALL articles submitted to any net.music sub-group. If Fred submits an article to net.music.rock, it will go to net.music.rock AND net.music. If Mary submits an article to net.music.classical, it will go to that group AND net.music. The reverse would not be true. Sending an article to net.music would just go there. If you wanted one of the specialized groups to receive it, you would have to send it there yourself. Articles on jazz, acoustics, Indian raga, gamelan music, film music, etc., would only go to net.music, unless you thought the a particular sub-group would be interested, in which case, you send it there also. On VMS, we have a thing called logical names. We could, for example, define "net.music.classical" as "net.music,net.music.classical". Then anything sent to the first sub-group would be sent both to the sub-group and to the parent group. How hard is this on UNIX? If it can be done, it would seem to answer everyone's objections (& hopefully put an end to this discussion). - Karl ...decvax!decwrl!rhea!star!malik