Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!lll-winken!sun-barr!decwrl!shelby!portia!rt-jqj!jqj From: jqj@rt-jqj.stanford.edu (JQ Johnson) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: CALL FOR DISCUSSION ' comp.sys.netware' Keywords: novell, netware, protocols, lan Message-ID: <7943@portia.Stanford.EDU> Date: 28 Dec 89 17:41:56 GMT References: <914@excelan.COM> Sender: USENET News System Reply-To: jqj@rt-jqj.stanford.edu (JQ Johnson) Organization: Stanford University Lines: 34 Although I support the creation of a Netware news group, I believe the proposed charter of the group is wrong. Many products marketed by Novell are primarily non-Netware, e.g. the Kinetics Fastpath, and most of the Excelan product line. Such products are best discussed on existing groups, e.g. comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc, comp.dcom.lans, etc. Most (though not all!) Netware customers don't care about Fastpaths, and most Mac networking people don't care about differences between 2.15 and 2.1. I would of course expect a lot of cross-posting, not just with comp.dcom.lans but with virtually every other comp. news group (e.g. comp.databases). In other words, I believe that the central focus of the new group should be Netware as a LAN OS, not Novell products. As such, I would think that it would also reasonably include discussion of Netware for VMS and 3rd-party products targetted at the Netware marketplace. I also believe that it would probably be better to have the new group someplace other than under comp.sys. A Novell news group should be biz.comp.novell; a netware newsgroup such as I envision might be comp.sys.netware, but it might also be comp.os.netware (with a breadth similar to that of comp.os.vms) or someplace else. Note that there is currently a BITNET listserv group devoted to Netware as well as a quite active compuserve newsgroup. Any plan for a Netware USEnet newsgroup should resolve the issues of gatewaying among the various forums and the degree of Novell committment to participation in the discussions (no, I don't have a proposal). JQ Johnson voice: 415-723-3078 Manager, Special Projects Internet: jqj@jessica.stanford.edu Networking and Communications Systems Pine Hall Rm 125-A Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-4122