Xref: utzoo comp.sources.d:2145 news.admin:2241 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!ncar!oddjob!mimsy!eneevax!umd5!vrdxhq!daitc!csed-1!roskos From: roskos@csed-1.IDA.ORG (Eric Roskos) Newsgroups: comp.sources.d,news.admin Subject: Re: binaries on the net Message-ID: <355@csed-47.csed-1.IDA.ORG> Date: 20 May 88 19:32:48 GMT References: <1574@looking.UUCP> <22099@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <392@pan.UUCP> <4577@hoptoad.uucp> <1220@ssc.UUCP> <3083@bsu-cs.UUCP> <53618@sun.uucp> <4782@teddy.UUCP> Organization: IDA, Alexandria, VA Lines: 44 >Also, often SOURCE for such programs is steeped in machine dependencies: >the program wouldn't be much use to anyone who didn't have the right >type of machine, anyway. This is an important point. I personally prefer sources too, but of the PC sources which are posted (and, in fairness to the posters, it should be mentioned that a good many of the comp.binaries.ibm.pc postings include sources in the PKARC files, along with the binaries), I find *very few* which I can compile; and I use the MSC 5.1 compiler, which is about as close to ANSI and System V compatible as they come. Too many PC and Macintosh compilers don't follow the library conventions, even when it looks like they do, so the sources are not portable. This is especially true of compilers like Turbo C, which seem to have various structures in their include files whose content and function you have to try to guess when porting the code. C source code is just not that portable: it's easy to port most Unix source to the PC (less so to the Macintosh), but often very hard to go the other way. However, there is a second, I think equally important, issue involved. Some people have claimed, "you should use BBS's to distribute binaries." But I trust Usenet binary postings much more than any BBS simply because I trust the technical competence of the people on the Usenet a lot more than I do most BBS operators I have encountered. This is probably less true than formerly, since it appears that now people are interfacing BBS systems to the Usenet, but the Usenet still has a much higher proportion of people whose profession is programming, and who can spot malicious programs more quickly than someone who is primarily a user. As I mentioned earlier, it seems pointless to keep arguing over this issue; if a site doesn't like a particular newsgroup, they don't have to receive it. I know if we ever have to do this here, we will discontinue the voluminous "soc" and "talk" groups long before the binary groups. But the point is, it seems as if people who make such an issue out of the binary groups are concerned with more than their own site's costs; they seem to be out to deprive other sites of the groups too. This doesn't seem very considerate of other sites who do find the groups useful. -- Eric Roskos, IDA (...daitc!csed-1!roskos, or csed-1!roskos@DAITC.ARPA, or Roskos@DOCKMASTER.ARPA) "To tell you the truth, I can't tell what most of these buttons are for." "And, it talks like my car. I don't like that." -- Passengers heard commenting on an "ergonomically designed" elevator.