Most readers will be able to participate.
Life is like that, sometimes.
What's your problem, Ted? People disagree with you and they're bastards?
Gee, that's great.
No one's trying to exclude anyone from anything regarding Linux, so lighten
up. However, as c.o.l. grows there's going to be more of a need to organize
articles. Having more than one newsgroups does this extremely well.
Fido users are the *minority*. If they can't get the requisite feeds, well,
that's too bad, isn't it? Perhaps Fido users should consider another means of
getting access to news. How do Fido users feel about this - if another means
of getting access to news was available to you (for free or close to it) would
you use it?
As for Mail Digest users...how much more difficult will it be to send email
from two or three groups as opposed to one?
I have a "reasonable newsreader" (is that what rn stands for? ;-), and before
you say it, yes, I know how to use it. I still find the traffic high, and I
still vote in favor of splitting c.o.l.
You seem pretty sure of yourself, Ted, and for the life of me, I don't know
why.
Right. Six months from now, if c.o.l. is the only Linux newsgroup, you can
expect to see some 500-800 articles every monday morning. Brilliant, Ted,
just brilliant.
That's right, Ted, us usenet users are EVIL, TWISTED, FIDO-HATING BASTARDS(tm)!
Seriously, though, Pete did say he'd cross-post the cfv to c.o.l., and I see
no reason to assume he's lying.
If one has access, one has every much right to participate as everyone else
does. Having access, however, is not a right. Nor is it my responsibility to
guarantee these folks always have access - that's *their* job!
I suggest you read "Zen and the Art of the Internet" (copyright 1992, by
Brendan Kehoe) for more details. Here are a few excerpts from it:
(pp. 29 & 30:)
``4.3 What Usetnet Is Not
Usenet is not an organization.
Usenet has no central authority. In fact, it has no central any-
thing. There is a vague notion of "upstream" and "downstream"
related to the direction of high-volume news flow.
. . .
Usenet is not a democracy.
A democracy can be loosely defined as "government of the peo-
ple, by the people, for the people." However, as explained above,
Usenet is not an organization, and only an organization can be
run as a democracy. Even a democracy must be organized, for
if it lacks a means of enforcing the peoples' wishes, then it may
as well not exist.
Some people wish that Usenet were a democracy. Many people
pretend that it is. Both groups are sadly deluded.
Usenet is not fair.
After all, who shall decide what's fair? For that matter, if some-
one is behaving unfairly, who's going to stop him? Neither you
nor I, that's certain.
Usenet is not a right.
Some people misunderstand their local right of "freedon of
speech" to mean that they have a legal right to use others' com-
puters to say what they wish in whatever way they wish, and
the owners of said computers have no right to stop them.
Those people are wrong. Freedom of speech also means freedom
not to speak; if I choose not to use my computer to aid your
speech, that is my right. Freedom of the press belongs to those
who own one.''
There is certainly more worth reading, but this encapsulates what many of us
feel, Ted. There are no guarantees, or "rights" per se. "Zen and the Art of
the Internet" is not the de facto journal on the Internet (there isn't one),
but it is good reading, and it's widely regarded as an excellent set of
reasonable guidelines. It also offers some suggestions as to how one may go
about getting access to the Internet (or individual component nets).
If Fidonet users can gain access to c.o.l., that's great - we welcome their
contributions to Linux's development! If they can't, however, the rest of us
shouldn't have to (and won't) reduce our effective resources due to Fidonet
limitations.
I will provide a copy of "Zen and the Art of the Internet" via email to Fidonet
users and those who depend on mail digests. Bear in mind that it's >492k and
it's a postscript document (sorry, I don't have straight ascii), so don't ask
for it if it costs you el grande $$$ to get email, or if you can't display or
print postscript files. For all you other folks with ftp access, it should be
on any major site (ftp.uu.net has it, I believe).
--Brian
__________
Brian Talley, Systems Consultant, Eastman Kodak Research Labs, Rochester, NY
talley@acadia.kodak.com
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Re: Splitting comp.os.linux, Brian K. Talley, (Tue Oct 20, 9:59 am)
