Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!sun!imagen!atari!kbad
From: kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: CODE POSTING ON THE NET
Keywords: news, USENET, ARPA mailing-lists, BITNET
Message-ID: <1560@atari.UUCP>
Date: 13 Jun 89 21:40:04 GMT
References: <890606.08402734.007881@SFA.CP6> <21754@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <382@laas.laas.fr>
Reply-To: kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher)
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 42

In article <382@laas.laas.fr> ralph@laas.laas.fr writes:
| In article <21754@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> stowe@silver.bacs.indiana.edu
| (Fox in Sox, Fox in Box, etc.) writes:
| |  Regardless of the problem or the size of the sources/executables,
| |  this is still an inappropriate newsgroup for such postings.  You are
| |  welcome to your opinion, however wrong it may be.
| |  
| |  [lot's of blank lines deleted :-)]
| 
| Well, the USENET news folks are forgetting something.  They are not
| alone out there in World Net!!  Some people subscribe to ARPA mailing
| lists, some to BITNET news/mailing servers.
| 
| Both of these services are gatewayed with the corresponding
| newsgroups; just look in news.lists about mailing lists.  For the
| people on these alternate networks, this is the only means to
| communicate source/binary code.  And it is perfectly correct.

Wrong again.

Compare the cost of mailing a disk to the (possibly hundreds of!)
dollars wasted by sending these source and/or binaries to the four
winds of the net.  If you have a problem with comp.binaries and
comp.sources groups, posting availability of your files in a newsgroup
and soliciting requests via netmail is more appropriate than posting
source and binaries to a discussion group.

I think it's time for some people to review news.announce.newusers, hmm?

And to avoid furthering this meta-discussion and wasting even more
net-bandwidth, I invite anyone who cares to respond via netmail.

BTW, the oblique reference above to the waste caused by blank lines
is also inappropriate; remember, each blank line only takes up one
byte.  I'd sooner see a dozen blank lines than five lines full of
textgraphic .signature file.  Harumph.


-- 
   |||   Ken Badertscher  (ames!atari!kbad)
   |||   Atari R&D System Software Engine
  / | \  #include <disclaimer>