Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!edsews!charette
From: charette@edsews.EDS.COM (Mark A. Charette)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Source ARCs are inappropriate!
Message-ID: <3271@edsews.EDS.COM>
Date: 22 Oct 88 16:41:34 GMT
References: <7119@dasys1.UUCP>
Organization: EDS/TSD - Troy, MI
Lines: 31

In article <7119@dasys1.UUCP>, tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
> After all the drawn-out discussion on the merits of net.binaries, I
> frankly never thought I'd see it perverted like this.  Merely ARC'ing a
> bunch of source (text) files does NOT create a "binary" worth sending
> in this newsgroup via UUENCODE!  Recent postings such as GYMAKE are
> wasteful and rude.
> 
> The appropriate thing to do with a source collection is to package it
> as a shell archive and post it to a source newsgroup as clear text.
> -- 
> Tom Neff			UUCP: ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tneff
> 	"None of your toys	CIS: 76556,2536	       MCI: TNEFF
> 	 will function..."	GEnie: TOMNEFF	       BIX: t.neff (no kidding)

I disagree somewhat. For those people accessing this via some connection
other than a Unix machine, it requires finding out what *.sources it would
be in, downloading it in ascii form (at their expense), and writing (or
finding) the unshar script.

I like having both the source and binary packaged together. I may not have
the {compiler,libraries,version} needed to compile the source immediately,
so at least I can try the binary and figure out whether it's worth the
conversion effort to make it work with my compiler.

Also, I have a (little) more trust in a binary accompanied by source - the
chances of the binary being a trojan might be reduced.
-- 
Mark Charette                   "On a clean disk you can seek forever" - 
Electronic Data Systems                  Thomas B. Steel Jr.
750 Tower Drive           Voice: (313)265-7006        FAX: (313)265-5770
Troy, MI 48007-7019       charette@edsews.eds.com     uunet!edsews!charette