Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!lll-tis!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!VTVM1.BITNET!OWENSJ
From: OWENSJ@VTVM1.BITNET (John Owens)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc
Subject: Re: microchannel hardware/software
Message-ID: <8712311456.aa17827@Louie.UDEL.EDU>
Date: 31 Dec 87 19:42:29 GMT
References: <decvax!eagle_snax!geoff@ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 27

>Is this kind of posting really kosher? I don't mind getting involved with
>discussions about products, but using a newsgroup to solicit beta
>test sites for a commercial product? Where I come from, we pay people
>in Customer Service to plan and manage beta testing.
Besides the fact that this newsgroup is one of the best places to find
beta testers, don't forget that beta tests benefit the testers too, and
many of us are quite interested in hearing the latest developments,
straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.  Isn't that the advantage
of electronic media, after all?

>mod.newprod is the
>place for new product announcements, which have to meet fairly stringent
>requirements (at least in theory.....)
First, this wasn't a new product announcement.  Second, this isn't just
a USENET group; quite a few people (like me) get this as a mailing list,
and have no way of reading mod.newprod (which isn't even the name anymore
- all the mod groups were renamed months ago).

In other words, let's be a bit more tolerant.  (If he had advertised
a product for sale, that would be another matter, but I feel that
the message was quite appropriate for a group of technical people
interested in TCP/IP on PC's....)

        Happy New Year,

        -John Owens                     +1 703 961 7827
        Virginia Tech   Communications Network Services
        OWENSJ@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU      OWENSJ@VTVM1.BITNET