Tabakal@UB.CC.UMICH.EDU (07/17/90)
Not to rain on Jonathan's parade, but I urge people to vote no
on comp.sources.apple2. As someone involved in the distribution
of apple ][ pd/shareware, it's enough to have to deal with the
sources we have now (mainly apple for notes, nosc for beta kermits,
comp.binaries.apple2, apple2-L, as well as visiting the various
other FTP sites to see what we've missed earlier).
I personally do not get comp.sources.* and would probably miss
a good deal of stuff if it came in.
Generally, sources are *larger* than executables, so I do not
think that removing them from the binaries will make them
more accessible. If anything, it may lead system administrators
to remove comp.sources.apple2 from sites, thus restricting rather
than expanding their distribution.
Providing more and better resources is a excellent goal for the
online "net" community, but I fear that comp.sources.apple2 will
merely detract from substance in order to better fit the usenet
naming protocol.
Let comp.sources.apple2 go the way of comp.sys.apple2.tech.
Vote no.
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Todd A. Bakal All snappy sayings aside,
U of M Apple User's Group !Index will be updated
Ann Arbor, Michigan ASAP or my name's not...
Internet: Tabakal@ub.cc.umich.edu FTP: ummts.cc.umich.edu
Tab@terminator.cc.umich.edu 35.1.1.43 (PC5:)
UUCP: ...!uunet!ub.cc.umich.edu!tabakal BITnet: Tabakal@UMICHUBART100@psuvm.psu.edu (Andy Tefft) (07/17/90)
I've been following this discussion with considerable disinterest, but I do think comp.sources.apple2 is a good idea. Nobody's going to miss any sources posted in comp.binaries.apple2 unless they put 'source' in their kill file or something. I think c.b.a2 is a wonderful place for sources to go. On the other hand, creation of a separate source group will encourage source code posting, and hopefully posters will also still post binaries in comp.binaries at the same time. There is not that much source code posted in comp.binaries as it is, so people who don't get the source group aren't going to miss anything! Some people will find it difficult to receive the group, sure, but they're not going to miss anything they don't already have. Archives will be difficult, sure, since probably none of the existing sites will want to take on sources and having an additional site isn't the greatest for the users. But it's quite possible that some of the major comp.sources.* archivers (uunet) will be able to archive c.s.apple2 as well. I think the only real advantage of a comp.sources.apple2 will be to encourage source code posting (basic, c, pascal, assembler), but what an advantage that is! Renaming comp.binaries.apple2 to something like comp.programs.apple2 would probably have the same effect, but that wouldn't cause any less of a stir, and with a separate group at least people and sites can choose to ignore the sources.