Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!seismo!brl-adm!brl-smoke!smoke!cpmlist@AMSAA.ARPA From: cpmlist@AMSAA.ARPA (info-cpm-request) Newsgroups: net.micro.cpm Subject: Posting software directly to info-cpm or net.micro.cpm: Message-ID: <2828@brl-smoke.ARPA> Date: Wed, 6-Aug-86 14:56:40 EDT Article-I.D.: brl-smok.2828 Posted: Wed Aug 6 14:56:40 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 9-Aug-86 05:47:47 EDT Sender: news@brl-smoke.ARPA Lines: 101 Fellow CP/Mers - On the 19th of July I went on a one week vacation. While I was gone, a revolutionary thing happened on this list: messages with sizes in the thirty to forty thousand byte range containing software encoded for transmission via mail channels started showing up. Now, I am beginning to receive queries from info-cpm readers wanting to know what's going on. To understand this reaction, one must recall some fairly recent history: For at least the last several years (the time during which I have been maintaining this list), we have from time to time received requests from the USENET community to not post messages containing tens of thousands of characters because much of the USENET relies on dialup telephone connections for transmission, and these telephone calls cost money. Similar requests have been heard from the DDN side because info-cpm is a mail-list, and some readers have accounts that are subject to disk storage quotas. I can personally attest that this is a problem for some people, because I must from time to time temporarily delete people from the list because they have gone on vacation (or whatever) and their mail has built up to the point that their disk quotas have been exceeded, causing all subsequent mail to be rejected (which causes automated "nastygrams" to be returned to me as list maintainer, and to originators of messages to info-cpm). But during this same time, a very important evolution has occurred: "mail-only" connections have been established between the DDN and several other networks. And thus, a significant number of people using these networks have begun receiving info-cpm (and net.micro.cpm via the automatic message forwarding service provided by the Army Ballistic Research Laboratory). Many of these people are from overseas (England, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Holland come to mind). And at a time when we are hearing that "CP/M is dead", the enthusiasm of these people seems to suggest that some sort of "rebirth" of CP/M may be occurring overseas. Now imagine (if you're not one of them) how frustrating it must be for these new readers to constantly read messages describing the wealth of free software available from SIMTEL20 to those of us using hosts connected to the DDN. (Readers in the CSNET and USENET, into which info-cpm has been relayed for some time, don't have to imagine how this feels; THEY KNOW.) As far as these "outsiders" are concerned, SIMTEL20 might as well be on the planet Pluto. To deal with this situation as best I can, I have created separate "welcome" messages to be sent to new info-cpm subscribers. The one for the DDN people contains the "archive blurb" (a sort of SIMTEL20 archives handbook), while the one for non-DDN readers explains that the archives are not available to them, and includes the nice writeup by Jeff Edelheit describing alternate sources for much of this software. Also, when I update the blurb, I limit the distribution of the new version to DDN subscribers so as not to burden the non-DDN people with something that can only be a source of frustration. I wish I could do more, but I don't know how. So given this situation, along come some folks who have worked up CP/M versions of programs used in the UNIX world to transmit groups of files (the functional equivalent of a CP/M archive) and encoded binary files via ordinary mail channels. AND all this stuff can be processed on UNIX machines before downloading to a micro. Suddenly, there is a ray of hope for the hordes of "disenfranchised" readers, and from the limited reactions I have seen so far THEY LOVE IT! Now the idea of sending software via mail and news-feed channels is not new: This has been going on in newsgroups like the USENET's net.sources for quite a while. But USENET sites can arrange to not receive selected newsgroups if the disk storage or transmission costs are more than they wish to bear. I would not like to see info-cpm dumped into the "bit bucket" for such a reason. Frankly, I am surprised that I have not seen "screams of anguish" from the USENET community in response to the recent high-volume activity in info-cpm/net.micro.cpm. Maybe everybody has fat wallets and huge disks these days... So what to do? It has been suggested that a separate USENET newsgroup, something like "net.cpm.sources", could be established. This would be a nice solution for USENET, I think, because it would allow each site the option I mentioned above. But it would not do much for people in other networks. What other possibilities are there? And is anyone willing to VOLUNTEER to provide some sort of archive service in the other networks (I believe BITNET has something going now, but I don't really know anything about it)? And most important, how do you feel about direct software distribution via info-cpm. I realize that asking these questions is likely to start a free-for-all, but I think this is a really important issue. It is, for example, conceivable that the info-cpm <-> net.micro.cpm message forwarding service might have to be discontinued if things get really out of control, but I in my opinion this would be EXTREMELY UNDESIRABLE. I am not implying that such a move is at all imminent; it is NOT. But we are faced with an important policy decision concerning how we want our newsgroup to operate. This issue is muddied somewhat by the "government interest". The US Army provides considerable resources to maintain the SIMTEL20 archives, and info-cpm is one of the channels through which the contents of those archives are made known to government users. So I think the Government has some rights regarding how this list is operated, although I'm not sure what they are. I hope Frank Wancho will comment on this. So please send your comments and opinions regarding this matter to the list as a whole, and not just to me as list maintainer. I think this needs to be an open discussion. And please "make sure your brain is running before putting your mouth (or fingers, in this case) in gear". There are diverse interests at stake here, and this is not a trivial question. Let's do the best we can. Looking forward to a good discussion, Dave Towson info-cpm list maintainer