morse@leadsv.UUCP (Terry Morse) (11/06/85)
Let's all stop complaining about the volume in net.sources.mac and start
seriously discussing what to do about it. Here are my two cents:
1) Establish a small group of geographically distributed sites willing to
distribute Mac source (Mac backbone sites, if you will). Those sites
interested in Macs would be the likely candidates.
2) Someone who has a program to contribute mails it to his nearest backbone
site. If the code is not a duplicate, the backbone site passes it on to
the other backbone sites.
3) After the program has been checked out, an abstract is distributed on
net.sources.mac (or some other name) along with a list of backbone sites
where it may be obtained.
4) Persons interested in getting the program mail a request to the nearest
backbone site, specifying source code or binary.
Is this a workable solution? Answering requests at the backbone site could be
automated with a bit of software. Feel free to comment on this plan. I have
Aztec C and would volunteer to compile and evaluate any Aztec C code.
I seem to recall that this was the way the uucp map was distributed for a
while. Does anybody know how well that worked?
--
Terry Morse (408)743-1487
{ amdcad!cae780 } | { sun!sunncal } !leadsv!morseheuring@boulder.UUCP (Vincent Heuring) (11/07/85)
Henry: Nothing personal, but I have followed your postings for some time now, and my observation is that you seem to always take an interesting, but contrary position. And, Henry, you've done it again. The net feed certainly contains lots of chatter and noise, but I would submit that most of it comes from net.singles, net.women, net.philosophy, net.motss, net.auto, net.music, etc. If you and/or your site don't feel that net.sources.mac gives you adequate value/$ then why don't you just drop the group; but please don't argue that the group isn't of value to the rest of us. The issue is really political, as nearly all issues of this kind are, and frankly I hope your unpopular view loses. Vincent P. Heuring Dep't of Electrical and Computer Engineering University of Colorado @ Boulder ut-sally!nbires!boulder!heuring
news@wcom.UUCP (News Administrator) (11/17/85)
Let's get rid of net.sources.mac. It has never been used to distribute _sources_, instead it's used to distribute various pieces of ascii-encoded binary programs, most of which are the so-called 'shareware'. This does not benefit the net as a whole, nor does it accomplish anything other than giving free programs, possibly buggy, or even harmful, to Macintosh owners. The value of sources posted in other places, such as net.sources, mod.sources, etc., are two-fold; first, the user of a program from the sources newsgroups gets something that does a useful function, without having to pay alot of money to get it. Second, the user learns from the source of the program the algorithms used, and maybe even some programming style in the language the source was written in. In many cases, the second is more useful than the first -- after all, how many people learned how Unix works, how operating systems, and utilities work, all from the Unix sources? Also, the sources enable improvements. Look at how Ward Chrisitiensens modem program went from a minimal communications program to a full featured system that rivals commercial products in the CP/M world. Finally -- look at what happenend on wcom a month or so ago...a program, which is very useful to us, proved to have a major bug in it, that brought so many flames down on me that my display is still smoking. I was able to look at the source, find the bug, and repost the fixed version. Without the source, I would be stuck with an unusable version of a program I use daily. If the Mac users are unable to post sources because they don't all have machines that are capable of running compilers, then that is what local users' groups are for. Shareware and binaries belong in users' groups, and local bulletin boards, not cluttering up the net.
bill@utastro.UUCP (William H. Jefferys) (11/24/85)
> > Let's get rid of net.sources.mac. It has never been used to > distribute _sources_, instead it's used to distribute various pieces of > ascii-encoded binary programs, most of which are the so-called 'shareware'. > This does not benefit the net as a whole, nor does it accomplish anything > other than giving free programs, possibly buggy, or even harmful, to > Macintosh owners. > Bullshit. I have posted exactly two items to net.sources.mac; both were source (SKEL in C, and the original version of macsend). I have seen a good deal of source code in net.sources.mac, much of which has been useful to me. The solution to the perceived net.sources.mac "problem" is for a greater proportion of sources to be posted, I'll agree. But it is rhetorical crap to say that it "has never been used to distribute _sources_". BTW, Macintosh sources in C, by my measurement, occupy from two to three times the space that the binhex executable does. Just so that you know that the space problem, if it is that, has nothing to do with the posting of binhex.
rec@mplvax.UUCP (Richard Currier) (11/28/85)
In article <943@wcom.UUCP> news@wcom.UUCP (News Administrator) writes: > > Let's get rid of net.sources.mac. It has never been used to >distribute _sources_, instead it's used to distribute various pieces of >ascii-encoded binary programs, most of which are the so-called 'shareware'. >This does not benefit the net as a whole, nor does it accomplish anything >other than giving free programs, possibly buggy, or even harmful, to >Macintosh owners. > You are obviously unaware of the usefulness of the many utilities distributed in binary form to many Unix professionals working in the area of integrating small systems in general and the Macintosh in particular into the Unix environ- ment. If you are not engaged in this Unix related work you should not try to dictate the nature of the information flow in the groups to those who are. As a News Administrator there is a simple solution to your problem. Turn off the groups at your site. You can lower you phone bills and let those of us who use the information in the groups get on with our jobs. -- richard currier marine physical lab u.c. san diego {ihnp4|decvax|akgua|dcdwest|ucbvax} !sdcsvax!mplvax!rec