Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!fenchurch.mit.edu!wisner
From: wisner@fenchurch.MIT.EDU (Bill Wisner)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Binary groups need their own hierarchy
Message-ID: <9289@eddie.MIT.EDU>
Date: 22 May 88 13:37:03 GMT
References: <397@pan.UUCP> <5284@sdcrdcf.UUCP> <22773@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <908@ndsuvax.UUCP>
Sender: uucp@eddie.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: wisner@fenchurch.MIT.EDU (Bill Wisner)
Organization: MIT EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 19

In article <908@ndsuvax.UUCP> ncoverby@ndsuvax.UUCP (Glen Overby) writes:
>Rather than muddling the current comp. soc. sci. etc. naming scheme, why
>not bring in a new DISTRIBUTION.  We've even got that mechanism in place.

It's a bit late for such concerns, what with alt, unix-pc, bionet, usrgroup,
gnu...

>*BUT* if a separate distribution hierarchy is set up (or even if it's not..)
>why not create a mechanism to transport binaries AS binaries, rather than
>doing hokey ASCIIfication of them?  Then sites which compress news can
>compress directly off of the binary itself.  Obviously, many changes would
>have to be made to our current news readers and such; I haven't thought
>out exactly HOW to do this.

Well then, go to it. Develop an entirely news system that will handle
binaries. And then convince ten thousand sites still running 2.10 or 2.11.8
to upgrade.

..b