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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:5362 comp.unix.bsd:16154 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msunews!uwm.edu!news.alpha.net!news.mathworks.com!newshost.marcam.com!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!helena.MT.net!nate From: nate@trout.sri.MT.net (Nate Williams) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: Put the Cannons Away: Vote YES on newsgroup reformation. Date: 13 Feb 1995 06:27:21 GMT Organization: SRI Intl., Montana Lines: 102 Message-ID: <3hmu49$f1m@helena.MT.net> References: <D3o5Ew.8x2@nbn.com> <hm.792410152@hcswork.hcs.de> <3hhlk1$fc9@agate.berkeley.edu> <3hjmsn$p7b@park.uvsc.edu> Reply-To: "Nate Williams" <nate@sneezy.sri.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: trout.sri.mt.net In article <3hjmsn$p7b@park.uvsc.edu>, Terry Lambert <terry@cs.weber.edu> wrote: >] So why shouldn't we have our own newsgroups then? > >How about "Because a patch to an Adaptec driver applies to both >source bases? Then post it to the 'shared' group, or cross-post to both. I'd be willing to bet a significant amount of money that over 90% of the questions posted to the News are specific enough to one version over the other that not splitting just makes for more *noise* for the other version. >There is more *code* in common between the two groups than not, >and even fixes to code that is not common are frequently applicable >as algorithms between the code bases. That is and will continue to be less of an issue. And, algorithmically (sp?) there is very little code sharing going on since aside from the VM system there is little *new* coding going on that I'm aware of. Most of the coding going on is bug-fixes and enhancements. >What supporting a naming spilt does is double the number of groups >which have to be tracked to get generally applicable patches and >other code. Oh c'mon now Terry. There is precious little code that is posted to the newsgroups. Show me 100K of code in the last month that was posted to the newsgroups that is applicable to both FreeBSD and NetBSD. I can show you 20MB of postings to the same groups if you'd like. 20MB vs. 100K? >Personally, I am not interested in tracking parallel developement >efforts in two groups because a total of 7 people threatened to >walk for political reasons, resulting in a damn split in the first >place (3 from one group, 4 from the other, you know who the hell >you are). The so called 'split' never happened. What happened was a proposed 'merge' never got off the ground because of personal reasons. If you want the short version of the history of FreeBSD, check out our home page on WWW.FreeBSD.org. >The FreeBSD group knows more about VM. The NetBSD group knows more >about portable kernel code and drivers. The FreeBSD group knows >more about release engineering and packages. The NetBSD group knows >more about writing Sun-style serial drivers. *laugh* The sun-style serial drivers must have been a stretch, since Chris has avowed all knowlege of his original driver. I don't think any one group 'knows' more than the other, it's just that the focus of the individual members are more inclined towards particular directions. >I don't know one FreeBSD adherent who has cancelled his subscription >to Dr. Dobbs because T William Wells wrote about NetBSD's serial >driver there. Actually, as I understand it the article was about FreeBSD serial drivers, but Bill chose to not work with the FreeBSD folks later when we didn't offer to replace our existing driver with his. (More or less) >The mailing lists are sufficient seperation of the groups forums; >this should not be continued to the news groups arena for the >purpose of providing ego-salve for seperatist religious zealots >who can't play baseball in the same park where someone else is >playing baseball because they think baseball threading should >be blue instead of green (when we all know it should be red). Give me a break. It has nothing to do with 'my daddy's bigger than your dad'. I'm in the same boat as Jordan. My ability to wade through 200+ articles/day + 300+ mail-messages/day has decreased greatly with my slow network connection and a new job. I *can't* keep up with all the volume of information, and I'd like to think that the core developers have something to offer, and as such our involvement will be lessened or completely gone if something doesn't happen to decrease the scope of the postings. Usenet is *much* bigger than when you and I first started using it, and this popularity makes it almost impossible to stay up with any one topic anymore, even with a threaded newsreader. The purpose of the renaming scheme IMHO is to make the newsgroups more *relevant* to those involved. In the new scheme of 500+ messages/day in many newsgroups, this means limiting the scope of the newsgroup, not broadening it or keeping it the same. Keeping it broad means the SNR makes the newsgroups useless for gathering information unless you have the hours it takes to pore over all the articles for gems of information. At one time I was able to do that, not any longer and I suspect that most other folks are in the same boat. Nate -- nate@FreeBSD.org | Do you think SRI cares what I say? They certainly nate@sneezy.sri.com | don't accept responsibility for my actions, so I work #: (406) 449-7662 | obviously don't represent them on Usenet. home #: (406) 443-7063 | *FreeBSD core member and all around tech. weenie*