battan@qtc.UUCP (Jim Battan) (05/21/89)
Over four months ago I posted a CALL FOR DISCUSSION on the creation
of a news.software.c newsgroup to handle the "imminent" C News
discussions. I received the following (abbreviated) replies. I
do not have time to issue the CALL FOR VOTES; someone else should
volunteer. Personal option: After reading the replies, I now
recommend the renaming of news.software.b to news.software.
-----------
(First, my original posting:)
From: battan@tc.fluke.COM (Jim Battan)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.software.b,news.admin
Subject: CALL FOR DISCUSSION: news.software.c
Message-ID: <6815@fluke.COM>
Date: 1 Feb 89 22:17:23 GMT
Now that the formal release of C news has a more definite date, it's time
to call for discussion on creating a new newsgroup based on this new
version of the USENET software. The volume and need isn't there now, but,
at least to me, it's obvious that it will be soon after the package is
released. It would be nice to complete the discussion and call for votes in
time for the newsgroup to be created before the software is released.
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Does the fact that the authors of C news have repeatedly stated that
they don't want to have a newsgroup for these sorts of discussions
have any bearing on what you're doing?
In the past, both Henry and Geoff have wanted bugfixes and suchlike
mailed to them, rather than posted. I recall that they also felt that
the current news software group was quite adequate for general
discussions of the previous C-news release. Perhaps you ought to ask
them before you propose this new newsgroup.
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I think that this is a good idea; but it should NOT be named something as
easy-to-misunderstand as "news.software.c". Otherwise, we'll get a deluge
of neophytes posting miscellaneous C software.
I suggest "news.software.cnews".
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Makes sense. However, since there really isn't that much traffic
regarding the current news software (except from new users), why create
a new group? Unless you are concerned about people getting confused
between the two sets of software, I don't think there is really a need
either at the present time, or in the future.
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The traffic on news.software.b is not enough that it warrants the
creation of another group to handle C. That is, the two discussions
could quite likely co-exist in the same group without problem. Therefore
I suggest creation of news.software and deletion of news.software.b
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There's very little traffic in news.software.b, so let's just change
the description. On second thought:
fig% grep news.software.b /usr/lib/news/newsgroups
news.software.b Discussion about B-news-compatible software.
fig%
No change is necessary. Let's use n.s.b until C news bugs overwhelm
any other discussion that goes on there.
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Well, provided there will be ongoing discussion of the package after
its release (and I'm sure there will be), and seeing as how the only
existing group which is even *close* to being the right place for it
is news.software.b, which is definitely NOT the right place, I don't
see a big problem with justifying the existence of a news.software.c
group.
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Punt news.software.b, create news.software (for talk of B 2.11, B 3.0, C),
leave news.software.nntp and news.software.notes as they are.
-----------
Until this post reminded me about news.software.nntp and
news.software.notes I too agreed. Simply renaming
news.software.b to news.software isn't the best idea because the name
is now too general. Perhaps a new name should be news.software.b-c
(or just .bc, or .b-n-c, or .b+c if all known operating systems will
accept that).
Maybe we should just change the newsgroups line to read:
news.software.b B-news-compatible software and its descendants.
A couple of years from now, when C-news is widespread, we can change
it to:
news.software.c C-news-compatible software and its ancestors.
with an appropriate addition to the $LIBDIR/aliases file.
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>(or just .bc, or .b-n-c, or .b+c if all known operating systems will
^^^^
I know at least one o.s. that will _not_ accept this. Please do not
use this as a name.
-----------
>The traffic on news.software.b is not enough that it warrants the
>creation of another group to handle C. That is, the two discussions
>could quite likely co-exist in the same group without problem. Therefore
>I suggest creation of news.software and deletion of news.software.b
But news.software overlaps news.software.nntp (for example).
I prefer creating a group news.software.misc, to put all discussions
in do *not* fit in another news.software.* group.
When discussions about one specific thing (e.g. C news, rn, vn, nn etc.)
are enough for creating a news group, it can be separated from
news.software.misc.
Separating non-B-news items from news.software.b should be done!
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>Perhaps a new name should be news.software.b-c
>(or just .bc, or .b-n-c, or .b+c if all known operating systems will
>accept that).
This is a joke, right? What a revoltingly ugly set of newsgroup names.
Subjective judgment, of course.
B 2.11, B 3.0, and C variants of news are all rather similar in one
important respect. All are intended for UNIX systems. Given the nature
of the USENET (most sites are UNIX machines) I see no problem with a
generic news.software newsgroup to discuss all of them. Since the future
of the news software is very unclear (we have C news and B 3.0 news
both vying to be the next generation, and what will probably happen is
that both will become widespread), limiting a newsgroup to just B or
C news is very shortsighted.
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I should reiterate the position that I have taken on this in the
past: there's barely enough traffic about *all* versions of the news
software to keep one newsgroup busy, never mind half a dozen. What we
probably ought to have is a single "news.software" group, with no
subgroups created except when the need is truly demonstrated (as opposed
to merely forecast).
-----------
I don't mind if people want to talk about C news and form news.software.c
to do so (in fact, I'm flattered, unless it turns out to be a lot of
complaining).
What I think we I wanted to avoid is a newsgroup like
comp.os.minix with us as resident gurus; C news has already taken
too much of our time and we want to get out of the news software
business. The transport protocols rarely change and we would like to
move on to other things. We will of course continue to run C news
ourselves, so C news will not be an orphan, but we don't plan 40
Larry-Wall-style patches either, and have no plans now for future
releases.
--
Jim Battan
Quantitative Technology Corportation (QTC), Beaverton, OR
+1 503 626 3081 ...!tektronix!sequent!qtc!battan