Xref: utzoo news.groups:16788 comp.sources.d:4638 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!rex!rouge!lar From: lar@pc.usl.edu (Robert Lane A.) Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.sources.d Subject: Re: Proposed New Newsgroup - comp.shareware Message-ID: Date: 24 Jan 90 20:21:06 GMT References: <139@sneezy.tcom.stc.co.uk> Sender: anon@rouge.usl.edu Followup-To: news.groups Organization: Univ. of Southwestern LA, Lafayette Lines: 38 In-reply-to: pete@tcom.stc.co.uk's message of 23 Jan 90 19:00:29 GMT In article <139@sneezy.tcom.stc.co.uk> pete@tcom.stc.co.uk (Peter Kendell) writes: The problem arises that sites, whether trunk, branch or leaf nodes, have no choice as to whether they carry shareware or not. Remember, USENET is a non-commercial network. The existing source and binary groups carry shareware and PD software intermixed. If the problem is that shareware is too commercial, shouldn't the new group be placed under biz? How about biz.software? Does something already exist on biz that could be used for this purpose? Otherwise, I would suggest that the logical place would be under comp.sources or comp.binaries. I believe that *choice* is the important part of this. A site should be free to choose whether to carry shareware or not. The only way to achieve this is to create a dedicated shareware newsgroup (or groups). Does anyone have any idea how much potential shareware traffic exists? Would a new newsgroup be justified? Note that a corollary of this is that software posted to other groups is to be regarded as freeware - shareware writers should beware! You mean if someone posts a piece of software that I happen to have acquired from some other source and paid the shareware fee for, I'm entitled to a refund of the fee? I would think not. It should be up to the moderators, if anyone, to keep shareware out of the other groups. If a group is not moderated, then forget it. In that case no amount of net.legislation will entirely stop shareware posts. Please send your votes to me, pete@tcom.stc.co.uk. WHOA! We need some time to exercise our flame thr--er--discuss this before a vote. Take a look at the newsgroup creation guidelines. Just my $0.02. Followups to news.groups. Lane lar@usl.edu ...!texbell!rouge!lar