Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!alberta!ubc-cs!van-bc!sl
From: sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Unbiased moderator volunteers
Keywords: no,not the source,luke.
Message-ID: <1823@van-bc.UUCP>
Date: 25 Jun 88 19:16:15 GMT
References: <2805@rpp386.UUCP> <28.UUL1.3#935@aocgl.UUCP> <4542@gryphon.CTS.COM> <659@scovert.sco.COM> <379@teletron.UUCP> <8659@netsys.UUCP>
Reply-To: sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne)
Organization: Wimsey Associates, Vancouver, BC.
Lines: 48

In article <8659@netsys.UUCP> len@netsys.UUCP (Len Rose) writes:
>In article <379@teletron.UUCP> andrew@teletron.UUCP (Andrew Scott) writes:
>
>[lots of intelligent remarks,which make sense]
>
>>I'm also in the "binaries must go" camp.  I think that *all* sources and
>>binaries newsgroups (including comp.sources.unix) should be replaced by
>>a comp.sources.announce type newsgroup, where announcements of new source
>>releases could be made, including instructions on how to get them from an
>>archive server. (perhaps uunet?)
>
>This is what I have a problem with.. Surely not the SOURCE groups.. Source
>is what makes Usenet so worthwhile for most sites. Surely with the reduced
>traffic,source would not be a problem.. 
>

Yes *SOURCES* too.

But with a qualification. Before we get rid of either sources or binaries we
must ensure that an adequate number of sites are setup to allow FTP or
anonymous uucp downloading of them.

I have have been laboriously save comp.sources.all for years, it fill's
disks, tapes, it's hard to find things because it spread across several
tapes, and the files all have cryptic names.

At this point in time for most things I just look in uunet!~/ls-lR and
download what I need. It's fast, cheap (via trailblazer), and I get to use
all that hard disk space.

Also with a central repository it's very easy for contributors to
continually keep the files uptodate. A week ago I downloaded g++ sources for
someone locally. Had a heck of a time until I grabbed another copy of ls-lR
and found out that a new version of some of the files had arrived.

While I don't advocate that everyone signup for uunet (at least until they
get the Amdal installed :-) ) I do advocate that alternatives to mass
distributions be found. For example how about a top level distribution
called archive which ties together sources / binaries group moderators with
a *small* number of archive sites. In other words use it to create a
distributed sources / archive database. While each site might not carry
everything in the archives, choosing to specialize in say amiga sources or
xenix binaries; it should be possible to at least give the files the same
name and position in the archive file system heirarchy.


-- 
Stuart.Lynne@wimsey.bc.ca {ubc-cs,uunet}!van-bc!sl     Vancouver,BC,604-937-7532