Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site spice.cs.cmu.edu Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!spice.cs.cmu.edu!tdn From: tdn@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Thomas Newton) Newsgroups: net.micro.mac,net.micro.amiga,net.news.group Subject: Re: commercialism and net.micro.amiga going the way of .mac Message-ID: <477@spice.cs.cmu.edu> Date: Fri, 1-Nov-85 06:32:30 EST Article-I.D.: spice.477 Posted: Fri Nov 1 06:32:30 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 3-Nov-85 09:12:23 EST Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 36 Xref: watmath net.micro.mac:3239 net.micro.amiga:578 net.news.group:4212 What's wrong with the technical postings by Commodore to net.micro.amiga? If development software and manuals were only available to developers (as one post claimed), I could see your point. But in fact a C compiler, an assembler, and manuals will be available for sale to end users shortly. The technical postings thus do not benefit only developers but anyone who plans to do any sort of programming at all on the Amiga (including people who want to hook it up to Unix systems, if Unix is all you care about). I suppose you would also say that Larry Rosenstein (lsr@apple) should not be allowed to post to net.micro.mac simply because he works for Apple. Yet, he posts very useful information and I for one am thankful for his participation in net.micro.mac. As long as the people working for Apple and Commodore post technical information, rather than advertising copy, I don't see the problem. I see that you consider program sources to be undesirable. However, I would venture to guess that program sources (or binaries) are much more useful than the material posted in net.flame, net.politics, net.religion, etc. I do not see the logic behind trying to restrict useful groups that are successful when these three flamage groups account for a fairly large amount of net traffic. > Quite honestly, the only real solution I see to the current net malaise, > is to retrench ourselves into a pure UNIX network, with moderated feeds > from other interest groups, and perhaps even with full moderation on all > groups. Is it correct to interpret this as "only UNIX newsgroups and fa.* newsgroups (excuse me, some of the mod.* newsgroups) will remain"? If this is the case, I don't think you'll need to worry about phone costs destroying the net since there won't be much of a net left to destroy. I realize that backbone sites bear large parts of the cost of the net and therefore have a lot of say in how it is run. But it seems to me that the goal should be "acceptable cost and a high signal-to-noise ratio" rather than "minimal cost" (which if followed to its ultimate conclusion would require completely eliminating the net). -- Thomas Newton Thomas.Newton@spice.cs.cmu.edu