Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!kyle
From: kyle@uunet.UU.NET (Kyle Jones)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Isn't this group supposed to be for Bnews?
Message-ID: <127221@uunet.UU.NET>
Date: 1 Apr 91 23:14:41 GMT
References: <2202@cssinc.UUCP> <1991Mar30.224500.20696@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: UUNET Communications Services, Falls Church, VA
Lines: 29

jim@cssinc.UUCP (Jim McCorison) writes:
 > Being relatively new to the net I may have missed some historical aspect of
 > this group, but isn't it supposed to be for Bnews discussion? It currently seems
 > to be dominated by Cnews.

henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
 > The current interpretation is that it's for B-compatible news discussion.
 > A couple of attempts to create a news.software.c have failed, mostly because
 > it is, frankly, a dumb idea.  The issues are very often common to both, and
 > there isn't enough B-specific traffic to justify a separate B News group.
 > What would be more sensible would be to rename it to news.software.transport,
 > which would make its broader meaning more explicit.

Often the issues discussed are _not_ common to both news systems,
which is what McCorison implied in his article.  Witness the
recent problems with relaynews (or some hacked version thereof),
and the C news specific error messages about history and explist
being corrupted.

B news and C news are not compatible at the administrative level.
A lot of B news and C news specific administrative questions are
asked in this newsgroup.  Separating the traffic doesn't mean
the end of common discussions, it just means such discussion need
to be cross-posted.  Cross-posting is something that I hope to
God news administrators, at least, can do intelligently.

Renaming the group to news.software.transport legitimizes the
potluck variety of traffic, but it doesn't adress thr problem
that McCorison pointed out in his article.