Subject: Re: Moving cygwin discussions to Usenet? (e.g., alt.os.cygwin)
From: Soren A <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2002 23:58:58 +0000 (UTC)

Eduardo Chappa <[email-masked]> wrote around 30 Sep 2002
news:[email-masked].
edu: 

I have finally decided that it would seem a little _strange_ if i
_didn't_ get my 2c in here since some (with overall historical memory of
past posts) will recall some rather strident messages authored by me.
But I have, I should note, already written privately to Eduardo (in
support of his proposal, btw). 

> *** Philippe Bastiani ([email-masked]) wrote today:
> 
>:) > Either actually read the mailing list via email as intended or
>:read ) > it via news.
>:)
>:) We can read/write messages via news.gmane.org server...
>:)
>:) But, IMHO, a group of discussion would be very useful: for the
>:) beginners, for 'repeat' questions and problems, ..., for any debat
>:) concerning Cygwin!
> 
> I agree with a proposal of this type, which should be completely
> separate from this list, and where people can discuss anything related
> to cygwin (even ask stupid questions, in whatever sense a question may
> be stupid). 

I agree conditionally, that is, I *do not* agree with the wording "any
debat[sic] concerning Cygwin. Not that I foresee that there is much
anyone could do to direct an unmoderated USENET newsgroup in any
direction or another; but to the extent that there will be a notion of a
CHARTER (I hope???) for this not-yet-existant ng, and to the extent that
that there will be (maybe) a core of relative "experts" with some base
of familiarity with Cygwin, I would hope it will *not* include the idea
that future development directions, in-depth re-engineering of the
internals, etc [of Cygwin] would be discussed. IMHO the existing Cygwin
Lists are the right place for that, if any place is. 

> I see why someone would like to keep all the mail related to cygwin in
> one list, but I also see why some people would like to reduce the
> number of messages getting to them (yes I know about gmane.org, but
> gmane.org is not USENET, just one server, which has been slow for me
> sometimes) 

There are several separate issues being discussed here. The question of
reader (participant) convenience is separate from topicality. I use
Gmane to read Cygwin now and it is the best thing to happen to me since
I left AOL/CompuServe years ago ;-). Gmane does not do anything to
*change* how the Cygwin List *works*, however. Except that the user now
has a news interface (NNTP) onto a Mailing List (instead of having to
cope with receipt of overly numerous individual email messages), and
there's a great feature that email addresses are munged (encrypted) by
the system to reduce spammer harvesting. That isn't going to happen with
an open USENET newsgroup, btw, and all participants who might post there
are going to have to deal with the full force of the predatory mutant
beast that is today's Internet Spammer. 

So, the existence or non-existence of Gmane doesn't have much to do with 
whether or not a USENET newsgroup is to be created. But Chris had in this 
thread repeatedly written "Mailing List" where what was being discussed is 
a newsgroup, and I guess that he just 'miswrote' himself.

If it works, the USENET cygwin ng could support the further growth of
Cygwin, where "growth" is being defined as something like "numbers of
individuals in a satisfied user base." Judging from his words, Chris is
primarily interested in a definition of "support" or "growth" that is
*not* what I just defined but is instead something more like "promoting
the technical improvement and extension of Cygwin as a software system".
The two notions, which on the surface are very distinct from each other,
have a potential interrelatedness: when a "user base" grows, new
individuals with new ideas and at least slightly) differing skillsets,
will be supported to maintain involvement in using Cygwin. Involvement
in using Cygwin can potentially lead to questions about how Cygwin works
(or doesn't in some particular context) in detail, internally. Asking
questions (of one's self) about that could lead to people deciding to
put effort into coming up with solutions. THAT promotes Chris'
definition of "growth of Cygwin". 

Please note the careful use all through the above para of "potentially" and 
"could" (as opposed to the alternative explicit or implicit "will," 
"should," or "certainly").

One further note concerns use of specific terminology (as mentioned
above). I do not know of such a thing as a normal mechanism for
"crossposting" between a USENET ng and a Mailing List. With extra effort
it is of course theoretically possible but it isn't "normal" since most
mass users employ a different client app (or at least a different mode
in an application suite) to do the two different protocols (NNTP vs
SMTP). To further the goal of fostering comfort on the Cygwin List, it
could be explicitly written in to a Charter for the new newsgroup that
"there shall be no crossposting to Cygwin Mailing Lists". 

  Best,
    Soren A

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