mjr@decuac.dec.com (Marcus J. Ranum) (12/06/90)
Since I started the thread on Software Obesity, I realized (and have gotten mail pointing this out) that such topics don't belong in comp.unix.internals - in fact there really isn't a forum other than something like the computer religion or flame newsgroups for it. On the other hand, being a subscriber to USENIX' "_Computing_Systems_", one of my favorite parts is the "Controversy" section. I was wondering if there might be enough interest out there to warrant either a (moderated) newsgroup or a mailing list devoted to discussion of trends (good and bad) in computing systems in general, or UNIX in specific. There are a lot of fascinating different ideas on USENET - wildly different ideas, and it might be nice to try to provide a home for some of them in an environment where it wouldn't turn into flame-fest, vendor-bashing, or editor wars. I can recall some really interesting USENIX papers (Rob Pike's "why workstations don't work" leaps to mind) that I would have really loved to see amplified, and to hear other people's thoughts on - sometimes conference papers are rather one-sided. (here Rob's paper does *not* leap to mind) I think thes a niche in the net that might be filled by an "electronic trade journal" that permitted editorials to be submitted, and the summarized or digested responses. (IE: someone posts an editorial soapboxing, and then a summary or summaries of "letters to the editor" might be posted) Who knows, we might get some high-quality papers. Some sort of suitable editorial policy of fairness would need to be developed, if the idea takes off. Anyhow, this still at the half-baked-idea stage - I don't even think it's worth calling for discussion at this point. If you have any opinions or ideas on the matter, send me e-mail, and if there's enough interest, I'll start a call for discussion or whatever the net.rules.thumpers like. (IE: I'll RTFM and follow the guidelines to anarchy) NOTE - followups are redirected to news.groups, which I don't read. I'm serious about keeping it to the email let's knock ideas around at this stage. mjr. -- I'd trade all the CASE tools in the world for one real programmer. [From the programming notebooks of a heretic, 1990]