Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!lll-winken!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!texbell!nuchat!splut!jay From: jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: Time for 8 bit news, isn't it?????. Message-ID: Date: 24 Jul 90 11:07:52 GMT References: <1990Jul13.022224.25441@lth.se> <3119.269d97ea@mccall.com> <777@hades.ausonics.oz.au> <15688@bfmny0.BFM.COM> <1990Jul21.054016.10409@looking.on.ca> Reply-To: jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) Organization: Confederate Microsystems, League City, TX Lines: 34 In article peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <1990Jul21.054016.10409@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: >> I would support a move to design a binary transmission format, have the >> new releases of B and C news support them, and have all the moderators switch, >> thus forcing anybody who wants binaries to get off their duffs and upgrade. >This is a great idea. It will break binaries at enough sites that maybe the >bloody things will finally dry up and blow away and maybe even some of the >stuff currently posted in binary form will start showing up as source. This is a rotten idea. That source is the prevalent form of software distribution in the Unix environment is more an artifact of the diversity of Unix systems than anything else. The IBM-PC world (the only one I'm intimately familiar with; I don't own an Amiga/Atari/...) won't switch away from the various compressed archivers it's using to a pure source distribution, for several reasons: 1) You can't stuff an executable in a shar, and comparatively few people own each individual language environment, so they can't recompile the programs. 2) .ARC/.ZIP files are easy to transport, and explode into the component parts with just a single tool, instead of requiring a shell and several utilities. 3) The cultural history doesn't include people improving on the source and sharing the improvements; if anything, it's more along the lines of stealing the code and giving no credit. Breaking binaries on Usenet will get rid of them, all right, but at the cost of cutting Usenet users off completely from nearly all residtributed programs. You won't get the authors to do things your way. -- Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can jay@splut.conmicro.com (eieio)| adequately be explained by stupidity. "It's a hardware bug!" "It's a +---------------------------------------- software bug!" "It's two...two...two bugs in one!" - _Engineer's Rap_