Xref: utzoo alt.sources.d:634 comp.sources.d:5577 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!shelby!bu.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!plains!overby From: overby@plains.UUCP (Glen Overby) Newsgroups: alt.sources.d,comp.sources.d Subject: Re: Unnecessary tar-compress-uuencodes Summary: BITNET Wants It Message-ID: <5256@plains.UUCP> Date: 11 Jul 90 16:48:47 GMT References: <15652@bfmny0.BFM.COM> <3114@psueea.UUCP> <1990Jul10.203015.27282@eci386.uucp> Organization: Silo Tech, Fargo ND where weeds are no longer WEEDS Lines: 53 In article <15652@bfmny0.BFM.COM> tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) charges: >We have recently seen a spate of "source" postings in "uuencoded >compressed TAR" form, instead of SHAR or other traditional plain text >formats. to which <3114@psueea.UUCP> kirkenda@eecs.UUCP (Steve Kirkendall) confesses: > I'm certainly guilty of posting articles in *.tar.Z.uue format. I'm not > entirely happy with it, but I believe there are some valid reasons for > using this ugly format... > When I transmit a file, I want it to be received unchanged. If it must be > translated to suit the receiver's environment, then that translation should > be done explicitly by the reciever, not magically by some machine halfway > between here & there. Both Steve and I are Frequent Flamers on comp.os.minix. This group is gatewayed to a LISTSERV list on that bastion of computer networks, Bitnet. I think we've all heard the rhetoric about what Bitnet does to source files, but if not just ask any one of us who have been unfortunate enough to have once been a BITNaut. Every time someone posts a source file which is not uuencoded, they get flamed by a dozen BITNauts who feel ripped off for not having gotten a good copy. But In article <1990Jul10.203015.27282@eci386.uucp> woods@eci386.UUCP (Greg A. Woods claims: > [...] It is rare >to find sites mangling news which is only passing through these days. >The translation usually occurs either during the storing of news, or >in the retrieval by the newsreader. I recall five parts of a Minix upgrade being munged last Christmas Eve (yes, 1989) between vu.nl and nodak.edu, and I think all of it's path was over the Internet. The rationalization for compressing is to compensate for the expansion caused by uuencoding, whose rationalization is, in an acronym, BITNET. Fix the Bitnet problem, and you rid the world of most of the reasons for uuencoding. I offer one sugestion: for groups which are source-only, have the gateway program pump everything thru 'compress | uuencode' before feeding it to Listserv. I still see no solution for discussion groups which also get sources posted to them. While I'm indicting comp.os.minix, I'd like to also charge comp.binaries.* with a similar offense, using arc, zip or zoo instead of compress. Other Solutions, anyone? -- Glen Overby uunet!plains!overby (UUCP) overby@plains (Bitnet)