Subject: Re: Patch spamming
From: [email-masked] ("J. David Bryan")

5 Jun 1997 02:02:56 -0700
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On  4 Jun 97 at 9:26, Andrew Evans wrote:

> I have a normal 33.6kbps dialup connection to my ISP, yet I still only
> spend a few minutes a day downloading e-mail.  As long as people remain
> judicious about keeping the size of postings reasonable, I don't see a
> problem.

I see two considerations.  One is the purpose of the list.  From the 
"Welcome to the gnu-win32 mailing list!" document that is sent when we 
subscribe:

    This list is a place to discuss the gnu-win32 tools and the Cygwin32
    API.  Announcements pertaining to the project are also sent to the
    list.

No mention of binaries or patches is made (unless we consider a patch to be 
"discussion").  If Cygnus decides that patches are appropriate discussion, 
then I would yield this issue.

The other consideration is Internet bandwidth.  Those patches are being 
replicated hundreds (thousands?) of times for each subscriber.  If 80% of 
the recipients are using each patch, then I would concede that posting them 
here is a valid use of resources.  If only 20% are, then a better use of 
the bandwidth would be to post a link.  So far, I have deleted each patch I 
have received, but then I'm not an intensive user of the GNU-Win32 toolset.

Another possibility would be to have a "gnu-win32-patch" mailing list, 
where those desiring to receive all patches could subscribe.  Discussions, 
as provided for in the "charter" of the gnu-win32 list, would remain here.

-- 
                                           Dave Bryan
                                   [email-masked]
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