use of net.sources (rebuttal of large postings flame)

[David Messer]

> > > I strongly suggest that we AVOID the use of net.sources (or new
> > > subgroups) for new, large software distributions. [...] net.sources
> > > is an EXTREMELY UN-economical way to distribute software.
> > 
> > I quite disagree. It's all fine and dandy for those with ARPA access to
> > smugly dictate that item x may be had by [...] transferring with 'ftp'.
> > [...]  I am sure Lauren would not be so quick to condemn these postings
> > if he didn't have ARPA access.
> 
> 	Oh, come on.  I don't have ARPA access either; this has not been
> a serious detriment to my acquiring software.  Sometimes I ask people to
> email the source to me, sometimes I send a tape, or occasionally people
> publish public uucp info so I can do the uucp version of anonymous ftp
> and get it myself (the best way, in my mind).
> 
> 	In my opinion, a short description of the software (a la the
> toolchest) and instructions for getting the distribution is preferable
> to posting the whole source.

Although Lauren's suggestion has some merit, it is only true if
only a small percentage of people are interested in the posting.
The total cost to the USENET community would be greater if everyone
had to call long-distance to get a copy of a program.

Another objection is that I am not sure if postings to net.sources
should be discouraged.  I find that net.sources it the single most
useful group in the network, and unless there was some other method
of distributing sources, I think that I would miss out on some very
nice programs.  Also, because it is easy to post a program to
net.sources, I think more people will take the trouble to do it.
I know that if I had to set up some special way to distribute the
few programs that I have posted, (i.e. if I had to actually THINK
about how to do it), I don't think that I would have bothered.

In any event, Lauren's objection seems to be based largely on the
fact that distribution of ANYTHING on USENET is unreliable.  My
respose to that is, rather than putting a band-aid on the problem,
fix it so that postings WILL get through.  I am not an expert on
they way netnews is distributed, but the times that I have personally
seem postings get lost seems to always be related to the receiving
system running out of disk space.  It seems to me that it would be
possible to confirm that an article has been correctly received, and
keep trying every day until it does get through.  (Up to some time-
limit of course).  Is this over simplified?

I do agree that specialty software distributions should not be
posted to the whole world.  Those who wish to post any large
article should certainly consider the cost to others when they
send it out.
-- 

Dave Messer   ...ihnp4!stolaf!umn-cs!circadia!dave