Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utai.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!utai!lamy From: lamy@utai.UUCP (Jean-Francois Lamy) Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.news.group Subject: Re: Mr. Spencer's selfish(?) desires Message-ID: <869@utai.UUCP> Date: Sat, 2-Nov-85 09:13:19 EST Article-I.D.: utai.869 Posted: Sat Nov 2 09:13:19 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 2-Nov-85 09:31:25 EST References: <472@spice.cs.cmu.edu> <6090@utzoo.UUCP> <1753@peora.UUCP> <17070@watmath.UUCP> Reply-To: lamy@utai.UUCP (Jean-Francois Lamy) Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto Lines: 49 Summary: > ... Mr Spencer's selfish desire ... You are missing the point here. We like net.source.mac because it is FREE, and therefore that we do not have to pay for CompuServe or BIX or Delphi or YetAnotherProfitMakingAndExpensiveBBS. Right? Probably very much so. And we wouldn't be complaining at all if we could all do the magic "anonymous FTP" from SUMEX. But there Terabuck rich DARPA picks the tab... But UseNet is not a cost-efficient way of distributing the quantity and the kind of software like that in net.sources.mac It may be a very CONVENIENT way, but sending the latest diff patch for 'rn' and sending a huge mac binary is not quite the same thing for a site administrator who has to justify the phone bill. Have you ever wondered how your local Mac user's group got all those goodies (because they do)? A group I know of gets the stuff from CompuServe, and shares the cost... Alternately, they get diskettes in the mail. Consider a site which orders the Info-Mac archive once, and then arranges to receive diskette based updates from somebody who does subcribe to a Macware source and contrast the cost of sending 1600Ks (2 diskettes using BinHex) by phone and the 1.00$ postage cost (diskettes are reusable). Perhaps we all should organize a local Mac user's group on our machines (after all, we are all saying that there is a keen interest...). I guess it would then be o.k. for that group (or yourself if your fellow mac users let you down) to PAY for a separate net.source.mac feed... or for the CompuServe costs if all else fails. The one thing you can't get at your local user's group is the amount of expertise you can get on a world-wide network. Net.micro.mac should be for the sharing of that expertise, and a MOD.sources.mac might be justified for the posting of (short) patches, examples, and "I tried this and it didn't work" stuff. Nobody will object to expertise sharing, but there are more cost-efficient ways to DISTRIBUTE SOFTWARE. -- Jean-Francois Lamy Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Departement d'informatique et de recherche operationnelle, U. de Montreal. CSNet: lamy@toronto.csnet UUCP: {utzoo,ihnp4,decwrl,uw-beaver}!utcsri!utai!lamy CDN: lamy@iro.udem.cdn (lamy%iro.udem.cdn@ubc.csnet)