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From: ejablow@dasys1.UUCP (Eric Robert Jablow)
Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Newsgroup proposal: archive announcements
Message-ID: <2889@dasys1.UUCP>
Date: 8 Feb 88 05:47:44 GMT
References: <8084@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: ejablow@dasys1.UUCP (Eric Robert Jablow)
Organization: Big Electric Cat//SUNY at Stony Brook Math Dept.
Lines: 88
Summary: (and more complete indexes)

In article <8084@eddie.MIT.EDU> wisner@eddie.MIT.EDU (Bill Wisner) writes:
>
>	.........	.........	.........
>
>I propose a moderated newsgroup, to be named misc.archives or
>comp.archives. A misc heading seems more appropriate to me, since
>there is more out there than just source code. There would be two main
>functions of the group. The moderator (myself?) woulf send out new
>announcements as they are received, and incorporate them into a master
>list. The master list would be reposted at regular intervals. I also
>see a list in index format. "mh -- available from udel.edu" This would
>facilitate locating specific packages.
>
>I'm taking votes on this until March 3. Send them to
>wisner@eddie.MIT.EDU or mit-eddie!wisner.
>
>..bill

Since I started this whole discussion, I'd might as well summarize the
various responses.

Ken Yap (ken@cs.rochester.edu) wrote in this newsgroup:
						Message-ID: <6388@sol.ARPA>

Yes, yes, yes. Where to get free software via ftp/uucp/whatever seems
to be word-of-mouth knowledge. I know quite a few machines with goodies
(Kermit, X, CP/M, etc) but I'm sure we all would love a list of lists.
If somebody would volunteer to maintain this list, I'd be glad to send
in what I know.

	Ken
-------------

Article 1114 of comp.sources.d:
Bill Wisner (wisner@fenchurch.MIT.EDU)  wrote originally in this
newsgroup (Message-ID: <8016@eddie.MIT.EDU>):
References: <2777@dasys1.UUCP> <6388@sol.ARPA>

A fine idea. I will probably regret this, but here it is. I volunteer
to maintain a list of archive sites. In fact, perhaps two are in order,
one of ftp sites and one of sites that offer anonymous UUCP, although
I only know of two of the latter.

(reply to wisner@eddie.MIT.EDU.)

---------
However, I received the following responses in private email:

From Russell Lawrence (uunet!wpg!russ):

From mstan!uunet!wpg!russ Sun Jan 31 
Status: R

Thanks for the posting about the one-liners.  I've been bitching to myself
about this thing for nearly 6 months but it never occured to me that there IS
and alternative.

BTW, if you get any good replies, how about copying me or posting to the net???
Thanks.

---
Russell Lawrence, WP Group, POB 306, Metairie, LA 70004
AT&T:   +1 504 456 0001          COMPUSERVE: 72337,3261
UUCP:   {philabs,hpda,nbires,amdahl,...}!uunet!wpg!russ

But someone whose letter I unfortunately deleted said that man-pages
were too much, that what were needed was for the archivists to put
forth a paragraph detailing what a program required (BSD, streams,
getopt,and so on), and just why it's better than a predecessor.

I conclude that what we need is first, a listing of all the archive
sites, their contents, hours of operation, preferred geographical area
of operations, methods of transmission (ftp, UUCP, and don't forget
BITNET!), and second, a standard way of indexing all the software
available.  In other words, a program should come with an ABSTRACT,
as well as a man-page and a README note.  

P.S. Does anyone want to adapt the Dewey decimal system to software?
It would be hard to do, but after a while, the phone bills would go
down.

I vote yes on Bill Wisner's proposal.

-- 
Eric Jablow                      {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\
Big Electric Cat Public Unix           {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!ejablow
New York, NY, USA	 	 Soon to be eric@fawn.sb.edu.
Copyright 1988 First Category Press