202 lines
9.3 KiB
Plaintext
202 lines
9.3 KiB
Plaintext
Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!faqserv
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From: o.crepin-leblond@imperial.ac.uk (Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond)
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Newsgroups: alt.sources,alt.sources.d,alt.answers,news.answers
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Subject: Welcome to alt.sources! (biweekly posting)
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Supersedes: <alt-sources-intro_766429979@rtfm.mit.edu>
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Followup-To: alt.sources.d
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Date: 29 Apr 1994 21:57:12 GMT
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Organization: Imperial College London, UK.
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Lines: 182
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Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
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Distribution: world
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Expires: 27 May 1994 21:51:38 GMT
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Message-ID: <alt-sources-intro_767656298@rtfm.mit.edu>
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NNTP-Posting-Host: bloom-picayune.mit.edu
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X-Last-Updated: 1994/03/29
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X-Version: $Id: alt-sources-intro,v 1.12 1994/03/22 18:47:22 ocl Exp $
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Originator: faqserv@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU
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Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu alt.sources:4030 alt.sources.d:1628 alt.answers:2617 news.answers:18787
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Archive-name: alt-sources-intro
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Submitted-by: o.crepin-leblond@imperial.ac.uk (Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond)
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Version: $Id: alt-sources-intro,v 1.12 1994/03/22 18:47:22 ocl Exp $
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Original-Author: jik@security.ov.com (Jonathan I. Kamens)
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What is alt.sources for?
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The alt.sources newsgroup is intended to be a repository for
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source-code of all sorts that people wish to distribute and share with
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other people.
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There are no restrictions on the type of source code you can post
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here -- any machine, any language, any purpose.
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A common reason to post to alt.sources is when you are posting a
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useful bit of source code to some other newsgroup, and you think that
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it might prove useful to other people in the future, in which case you
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can cross-post it here.
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Alt.sources IS NOT for requests for source code; the
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alt.sources.wanted newsgroup is for that. Alt.sources IS NOT for
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comments and discussion about source code, even source code posted in
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alt.sources; the alt.sources.d newsgroup is for that. Only source
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code should be posted to alt.sources.
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Posting material in alt.sources that is not human readable is
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discouraged. For example, shar archives are preferred to compressed,
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uuencoded tar files. Furthermore, the posting of machine-specific
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executables in alt.sources is HIGHLY discouraged.
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Why post to alt.sources?
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Since alt.sources is unmoderated, your source code will be
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distributed throughout the USENET (or, at least, the portion of the
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USENET that receives alt.sources) immediately, without having to wait
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for a moderator's approval, like you have to do for some of the other
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source newsgroups.
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Furthermore, alt.sources is archived at quite a few anonymous ftp
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and mail server archive sites, so people will be able to get your
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software from the archives after you've posted it, rather than having
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to ask you to mail it to them.
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Finally, you might have a bit of source code that is really too
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small to submit as a package to one of the other major source
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newsgroups. That's the kind of things that shows up a lot in
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alt.sources.
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Why post to somewhere besides alt.sources?
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Alt.sources isn't as widely propagated as the source newsgroups in
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the "comp" hierarchy, since more sites tend to get "comp" than "alt".
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Therefore, if you want your source code to have as wide a distribution
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as possible, you might want to use one of the "comp" newsgroups.
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The alt.sources archives tend to be less well-organized than the
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archives of the other source newsgroups, because they are usually
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maintained automatically rather than by hand, and because non-source
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postings are often interspersed with the source postings in the
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archive. Furthermore, many of the other source newsgroups are
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available at many more archive sites than alt.sources. Therefore, if
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you want people to be able to find your program really easily,
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alt.sources may not be the best place to post it.
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What format should alt.sources postings have?
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Because alt.sources is unmoderated, the format your postings take is
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up to you. However, there are certain basic guidelines which, if
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followed, make alt.sources a more productive newsgroup for everyone:
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1) Choose a good subject line for your posting that describes
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accurately what it contains. Many alt.sources archive sites generate
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their indices of the newsgroup from the subject lines of the postings
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in it, so try to make sure that there are relevant keywords in your
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subject that people can search for when looking for your source code
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later.
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2) Put a Followup-To: header line in your posting which directs
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followups somewhere other than alt.sources. This is especially
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important if you cross-post your alt.sources posting from some other
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newsgroup, because people will often respond to the posting in that
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newsgroup without realizing it was cross-posted to alt.sources.
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3) At the top of your posting, separated from the main header of the
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posting by a blank line, put something that looks like this:
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Archive-name: name
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Submitted-by: joe@blow.UUCP
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The "name" on the first line should be a short one-word string that
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can serve as a "tag" for the package. If your program has a somewhat
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unique name, you can just use the name of the program as the archive
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name. If you are posting a patch to a previously posted bit of source
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code, you would do something like "name/patchN", where N is the number
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of the patch. If you post source code in multiple parts, do
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"name/part1", "name/part2", etc. The second line should contain a
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return mail address for you.
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This informational header (note that it is an auxiliary header, in
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the body of the posting, NOT part of the main message header) is used
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by some automatic archiving software to maintain alt.sources archives
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automatically. There are other useful fields you may want to put in
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the auxiliary header; if you are curious, see the documentation for
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the "rkive" program in the comp.sources.misc archives to find out what
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they are.
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4) Make sure to mention, near the top of your posting (or near the
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top of your first posting, if you are posting a multi-posting
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package), exactly what the package is. If there is a README file,
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either include that at the top or (if you are using shar) make it the
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first thing in the first shar file. People should not have to search
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through the entire package just to figure out what it is.
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Where is alt.sources archived?
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See the article entitled "How to find sources (READ THIS BEFORE
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POSTING)" in alt.sources.wanted and comp.sources.wanted to find out
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how to search through the alt.sources archives and how to retrieve
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source code from the various archive sites.
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Are the sources available elsewhere?
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This question was answered by:
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Victor Volkman <vvolk@hcia.com>, CUG Acquisitions. Ed.:
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"The C Users Group wishes to further the distribution of alt.sources
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types of material to a wider audience. Since 1984, we have been
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distributing diskettes and CD-ROMs of C source code at very low costs
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($4 per diskette). Currently, CUG offers more than 400 such diskette
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volumes covering all major platforms including Atari, Amiga, Mac,
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PC (DOS and Windows), Sun, and most Unix machines. Material contributed
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to the CUG may also be published in the C Users Journal monthly. Please
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send mail to sysop@hal9k.com if you would like your alt.sources code to
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be considered for the CUG."
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[I have no links to the CUG whatsoever - OCL]
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Doesn't this introductory posting
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violate the guidelines outlined above?
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Yes. This posting is not a source-code posting, and therefore
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shouldn't really appear in alt.sources. However, the problem of
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non-source postings and source postings without auxiliary headers
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appearing in this newsgroup is severe enough that I hope to reduce it
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by posting this message. Other source newsgroups have similar
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introductory postings, posted by their moderators.
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No, I am not the "moderator" of alt.sources. There is none. There
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are probably people who think the guidelines I've mentioned above are
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wrong. If you think there's something wrong with this posting, please
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tell me about it, either by sending me E-mail or posting a followup in
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alt.sources.d.
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Although there may be specific things in this posting that people
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disagree with, I think that I am, in general, outlining the consensus
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of the alt.sources community. However, if a sufficient number of
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people (let's say five or more) send me E-mail and tell me that they
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think I'm completely off base and shouldn't be posting this message at
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all, I'll put it to some sort of vote and see what the consensus is
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that way.
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Comments about, suggestions about or corrections to this posting are
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welcomed. If you would like to ask me to change this posting in some
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way, the method I appreciate most is for you to actually make the
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desired modifications to a copy of the posting, and then to send me
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the modified posting, or a context diff between my posted version and
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your modified version (if you do the latter, make sure to include in
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your mail the "Version:" line from my posted version). Submitting
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changes in this way makes dealing with them easier for me and helps to
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avoid misunderstandings about what you are suggesting.
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--
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Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond, Digital Comms. Section, Elec. Eng. Department
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Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London SW7 2BT, UK
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Internet/Bitnet: <foobar@ic.ac.uk> - Janet: <foobar@uk.ac.ic>
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