Xref: utzoo news.groups:4939 comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d:557
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!chinet!mcdchg!heiby
From: heiby@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby)
Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: What to do about binaries
Message-ID: <10776@mcdchg.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jul 88 14:30:39 GMT
References: <6172@megaron.arizona.edu>
Reply-To: heiby@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby)
Organization: Motorola Microcomputer, Schaumburg, IL
Lines: 29

David Gudeman (gudeman@arizona.edu) writes:
> Maybe I'm missing something really fundamental here.  Why can't the
> sites that don't want binaries just stop carrying them right now?  Is
> there some technical reason?

I would very much like to stop carrying binaries on mcdchg, even though
I find the IBM PC binaries useful on occasion and my boss finds the Mac
binaries useful on occasion.  There is no technical reason why I can't
stop carrying them right now.  The thing that is stopping me is a continuing
feeling of obligation to carry the comp hierarchy (and the other groups, 
less talk and some alt groups) to make them available to the sites I feed.
I feel this obligation even though no such obligation actually exists.
Some day, news volume will be so high that tough choices will have to be
made.  Already, my disk space and modem time is tight.  Moving the binaries
to a new hierarchy for which I would not *feel* responsible would help me
out a great deal.

Don't taunt the administrators of machines that feed multiple megabytes
of traffic through their systems every day with things like, "Why can't the
sites ... just stop carrying them".  If I finally do start cutting off
newsgroups in comp, rec, soc, misc, etc., you might be surprised at just
how little continues to go through here.

I've talked before about BBSs and Compuserve.  I've talked about how cheap
modems really are these days.  I've talked about user groups.  The binaries
don't even have to travel as news.  Alternatives are viable and exist.
-- 
Ron Heiby, heiby@mcdchg.UUCP	Moderator: comp.newprod & comp.unix
"Failure is one of the basic Freedoms!" The Doctor (in Robots of Death)