Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!watdragon!crocus!imacbeath
From: imacbeath@crocus.waterloo.edu (Ian MacBeath, Conrad Grebel College)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Source ARCs are inappropriate!
Message-ID: <9310@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: 26 Oct 88 07:29:31 GMT
References: <7119@dasys1.UUCP> <4457@bsu-cs.UUCP> <7194@dasys1.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu
Reply-To: imacbeath@crocus.waterloo.edu (Ian MacBeath, Conrad Grebel College)
Organization: University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
Lines: 33

In article <7194@dasys1.UUCP> tneff@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>Several people have objected to my assertion that PC source collections
>should be posted in shell-archive form to a comp.sources.* group rather
>than bundled into ARC "binaries" and UUENCODED into the c.b.i.p.
>newsgroup.
[discussion about USENET and BBS stuff]
>C.b.i.p. should carry only binary executables, fonts, control files and
>such.  Source should be shar'd and posted to comp.sources.*.  That's
>not what a BBS does, but this is not a BBS.

It appears that comp.binaries.ibm.pc is the odd newsgroup out in that
there is no corresponding comp.sources.ibm.pc newsgroup.  I just had a
quick look and there are comp.{binaries,sources}.{atari.st,amiga,mac}
newsgroups to which are posted the uuencoded executables in the binaries
newsgroup and the shar'ed sources in the sources newsgroup.  Doesn't
it seem reasonable to follow the procedure that the rest of USENET
uses?  

Why doesn't somebody start and moderate a sources newsgroup?

.binaries is for binaries because some of us don't have compilers
so we can't use the sources, but if we wanted them then we should be
able to get them out of the sources group (if it exists).  How about
just posting the sources separate from the binaries so that those who
can't use them or don't want them can just junk the sources and save
the binaries?  This way they don't have all this extra source to
uudecode, dearchive, and throw away to get the binaries.  Those wanting
the sources can just save the sources posting.

Summary: 
Create comp.sources.ibm.pc and be like the other USENET groups or
post sources and binaries separately until when the sources newsgroup
will inevitably get created.