*BSD News Article 2070


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Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:2106 news.groups:47984
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!dtix!mimsy!ra!atkinson
From: atkinson@itd.nrl.navy.mil (Randall Atkinson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,news.groups
Subject: Re: yet another BSD newsgroup proposal (:-(
Message-ID: <3060@ra.nrl.navy.mil>
Date: 20 Jul 92 00:25:47 GMT
References: <14cuvtINN568@agate.berkeley.edu>
Sender: usenet@ra.nrl.navy.mil
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: Naval Research Laboratory, DC
Lines: 30

>     On the INTERNET/USENET, we are hoping to establish  our
>own  newsgroup called "comp.os.386bsd". This newsgroup would
>reside  alongside  the  "comp.os.mach"  and  "comp.os.linux"
>newsgroups. Already there are over 100,000 copies of Release
>0.0, and we hope to add to this  number  with  the  new  and
>improved  Release  0.1.   Please  help  us to establish this
>newsgroup devoted to the "freely available"  386BSD  system,
>by  asking  your  news coordinator to subscribe to it. We do
>not recommend using comp.unix.bsd, since 386BSD, like  linux
>and mach, is not a "comp.unix" system.

Folks,

  BSD _is_ more of a UNIX (tm)-like system than A WHOLE LOT of the
existing comp.unix.* newsgroups.  Creating comp.os.386bsd is
nonsensical.  I could see creating comp.unix.bsd.386 and renaming
comp.unix.bsd to comp.unix.bsd.misc, but the above proposal for
comp.os.386bsd flies in the face of USENET custom and practice.

  Moreover, short of moderating the newsgroup to prevent it, one
should fully expect that articles about BSDI's 386 product will be
posted to the proposed new newsgroup (regardless of name) simply
because a large chunk of the net users don't pay much attention to
what they are doing.

  I understand that my words aren't politically correct to some,
but a reality check is very much in order here.  To be frank,
the amount of political religion in this newsgroup is unusually high
even be USENET standards.  Maybe creating talk.politics.bsd would
be more in order just to move it elsewhere.