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From: fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin,news.groups
Subject: Re: new newsgroups?
Message-ID: <21214@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Thu, 8-Oct-87 20:21:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.21214
Posted: Thu Oct  8 20:21:28 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Oct-87 11:47:29 EDT
References: <30206@sun.uucp> <2687@xanth.UUCP>
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Followup-To:


In the referenced article, kyle@xanth.UUCP (Kyle Jones) writes:

>Here we go again.  I ask again: Can these groups be excised from the
>"official" USENET tree?  Putting the inet groups under comp, sci, rec
>etc. has thoroughly confused users and programs alike.  Why aren't the
>"inet" groups is distributed in the same manner as the alt groups?

The inet distribution has newsgroups in the USENET namespace because
I decided to do it that way (after a month's worth of consultation
with the members of the NNTP-Managers mailing list). I was fully
aware at the time that the distribution would leak when people
using netnews post new items (stuff gatewayed from the mailing
lists always gets the "inet" distribution added, and people replying
to the gatewayed material get the inet distribution copied into
their reply header) because the netnews software has a somewhat
limited idea of what ought to be the default distribution of a
newsgroup (just the top-level name; there ought to be yet-another-field
in the active file for this).

The first cut goal of the "inet" distribution is to make mailing
lists on the ARPA Internet unnecessary (because the traffic they
carry is carried by netnews). It makes life much easier for the
moderators and for the postmasters at the various institutions that
participate, because there are fewer strange addresses to track
down, and users can come and go without bothering anyone to add/delete
them from some central list.

The second goal is to unify communities of interest on the different
networks (ARPA Internet, BITNET, UUCP network, etc.). We have a
mostly workable newsgroup hierarchy on USENET, I decided to use
it.

So, the bottom line:
Do these newsgroups exist?

	Yes, within the "inet" distribution.

Can you get the "inet" distribution? 

	Yes, find a site that already has it (most sites on the
	ARPA Internet do) and ask them to feed it to you. I don't
	care whether you're on the Internet or not. Europe, for
	example, is getting the "inet" distribution.

Can we fix the leaks?

	Two possibilities:
		1. fix netnews
		2. make these newsgroups "official"

I hope this clears things up.

	Erik E. Fair	ucbvax!fair	fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu