Regarding the thread "Moving to Usenet?" (www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2000-07/msg00275.html) (which I found by via www.google.com/search?q=site:cygwin.com+usenet to see who else also wanted discussions on Usenet):
I WILL FIRMLY 2ND Jonas Jensen's good suggestion (http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2000-07/msg00206.html) for THE NEED TO MOVE DISCUSSIONS TO USENET, instead of, else in addition to, the present Mailing lists (www.cygwin.com/lists.html). While the mailing lists are an impressive and honorable effort, one doesn't want to have to sign up and manage a whole huge email list to just involved in a few issues. It's very off-putting, a waste of bandwidth, and only cost-effective if you're really involved. While it might be okay for those already heavy involved (so they might not want to change anything), it definitely puts off newcomers, probably hundreds or thousands of people who would otherwise get involved (and so may not be hear to speak up). To avoid the flood of emails I'd get if I'd subscribe, I'm having to read the EMAIL list with a WEB browser, yet reply via email; that wasn't the intended use; but I would never want to store, sort thru, thread, and search the flood of emails I would get if I subscribed; Google is much better for that. And for the millions of users on web email as Yahoo and Hotmail, such advanced filtering and threading of email typically isn't even possible, even if the user had the space to do it. Email lists CAN work for an initial small number of very involved people, but not for a large crowd who are mostly loosely involved. And, in response to Chris Faylor ([EMAIL PROTECTED])'s concern that "sources.redhat.com does not have the software, the capacity, or the manpower to operate a news server" ("However, if you think that this is a good idea, please do look into setting up something like an alt.os.cygwin newsgroup"), with today's tricks, MOVING TO USENET MAY NOT BE AS DIFFICULT AS IT APPEARS. http://groups.google.com allows users to read and post to Usenet without subscribing to anything (so simple to use and no load on the source servers). All you'd have to do is to find someone to host the master copy of the Usenet group, and you'd be set. I'm not experienced with hosting or starting a Usenet group, but if you're already (thankfully) going to the trouble to archive this email list on www.cygwin.com (which also DOES take the actual traffic of readers), it wouldn't seem that much harder to set up a real server. However, though I don't know if he'll do it, MY GOOD FRIEND Matt Bartley (see CC), who has extensive Usenet experience, MIGHT BE INTERESTED in helping with this, since he loves Linux & Unix, and something like www.cygwin.com which, clearly and strongly, brings this wonderful Unix stuff into the Windows world should make him very happy. AND I WILL DONATE USE OF AN EXCHANGE SERVER for this purpose, if someone with Usenet experience will set it up. (Unless it's enormous bandwidth with no funding for it (which doesn't seem likely if the postings which can be fed to other Usenet servers for reading)). At Cytex, we're willing to donate Windows hosting for those who will help get it working. See www.Cytex.com/Hosting/4Help for other offers. -Mike Parker, www.Cytex.com/go/MBParker/Seeking Aside: The only apparent advantage of mailing lists that I see offhand that it can better hide the email addresses from spammers (as www.cygwin.com/ml is attempting to do by the email address expansions (e.g., "cygwin at sourceware dot cygnus dot com") in the web archive above), but since once the spammers have gotten your email address once it's all over (since they share lists), I think a much better approach is to instead focus on methods to filter your email from spammers, possibly by something like a service which requires a user, in response to their first email attempt, to register their address with you (which they (a human) can easily do via a web form, but would take way to much time for a spammer to do for each address). Maybe someone's heard of such a thing? Michael B. Parker, MIT '89 * Computer & IT Consulting ...from Coding to Design to Setup & Repair. Since 1994. See www.Cytex.com * High-Tech? Romantic? Making a difference? --Want some tips & secrets? See this month's www.Cytex.com/go/MBParker/Seeking -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Bug reporting: http://cygwin.com/bugs.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/
