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- Message-ID: <alt-sources-intro_1260508727@rtfm.mit.edu>
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- X-Last-Updated: 2008/06/30
- Newsgroups: alt.sources,alt.sources.d,alt.answers,news.answers
- Distribution: world
- Followup-To: alt.sources.d
- From: ocl@gih.com (Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond)
- Organization: Global Information Highway Limited, London, UK.
- Subject: Welcome to alt.sources! (biweekly posting)
- Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
- Originator: faqserv@penguin-lust.mit.edu
- Date: 11 Dec 2009 05:18:53 GMT
- Lines: 202
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- Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu alt.sources:16478 alt.answers:84815 news.answers:324858
-
- Archive-name: alt-sources-intro
- Submitted-by: ocl@gih.com (Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond)
- Version: $Id: alt-sources-intro,v 1.18 2008/06/17 01:36:43 ocl Exp $
- Original-Author: jik@security.ov.com (Jonathan I. Kamens)
-
- What is alt.sources for?
-
- The alt.sources newsgroup is intended to be a repository for
- source-code of all sorts that people wish to distribute and share with
- other people.
-
- There are no restrictions on the type of source code you can post
- here -- any machine, any language, any purpose.
-
- A common reason to post to alt.sources is when you are posting a
- useful bit of source code to some other newsgroup, and you think that
- it might prove useful to other people in the future, in which case you
- can cross-post it here.
-
- Please note that alt.sources IS NOT for requests for source code; the
- alt.sources.wanted newsgroup is for that. Alt.sources IS NOT for
- comments and discussion about source code, even source code posted in
- alt.sources; the alt.sources.d newsgroup is for that.
-
- Only source code should be posted to alt.sources.
-
- Posting material in alt.sources that is not human readable is
- discouraged. For example, shar archives are preferred to compressed,
- uuencoded tar files. Furthermore, the posting of machine-specific
- executables in alt.sources is HIGHLY discouraged.
-
-
- Is alt.sources moderated ?
-
- No. alt.sources is unmoderated. There have been times when there
- were calls for retro-moderation to cancel inappropriate postings
- like spam, but these never materialized. In true USENET spirit,
- it is hoped that posters moderate themselves.
-
-
- Why post to alt.sources?
-
- Since alt.sources is unmoderated, your source code will be
- distributed throughout the USENET (or, at least, the portion of the
- USENET that receives alt.sources) immediately, without having to wait
- for a moderator's approval, like you have to do for some of the other
- source newsgroups.
-
- Furthermore, alt.sources is archived at quite a few anonymous ftp
- and mail server archive sites, so people will be able to get your
- software from the archives after you've posted it, rather than having
- to ask you to mail it to them.
-
- Finally, you might have a bit of source code that is really too
- small to submit as a package to one of the other major source
- newsgroups. That's the kind of things that shows up a lot in
- alt.sources.
-
-
- Why post to somewhere besides alt.sources?
-
- Alt.sources isn't as widely propagated as the source newsgroups in
- the "comp" hierarchy, since more sites tend to get "comp" than "alt".
- Therefore, if you want your source code to have as wide a distribution
- as possible, you might want to use one of the "comp" newsgroups.
-
- The alt.sources archives tend to be less well-organized than the
- archives of the other source newsgroups, because they are usually
- maintained automatically rather than by hand, and because non-source
- postings are often interspersed with the source postings in the
- archive. Furthermore, many of the other source newsgroups are
- available at many more archive sites than alt.sources. Therefore, if
- you want people to be able to find your program really easily,
- alt.sources may not be the best place to post it.
-
-
- What format should alt.sources postings have?
-
- Because alt.sources is unmoderated, the format your postings take is
- up to you. However, there are certain basic guidelines which, if
- followed, make alt.sources a more productive newsgroup for everyone:
-
- 1) Choose a good subject line for your posting that describes
- accurately what it contains. Many alt.sources archive sites generate
- their indices of the newsgroup from the subject lines of the postings
- in it, so try to make sure that there are relevant keywords in your
- subject that people can search for when looking for your source code
- later.
-
- 2) Put a Followup-To: header line in your posting which directs
- followups somewhere other than alt.sources. This is especially
- important if you cross-post your alt.sources posting from some other
- newsgroup, because people will often respond to the posting in that
- newsgroup without realizing it was cross-posted to alt.sources.
-
- 3) At the top of your posting, separated from the main header of the
- posting by a blank line, put something that looks like this:
-
- Archive-name: name
- Submitted-by: joe@bloggs.com
-
- The "name" on the first line should be a short one-word string that
- can serve as a "tag" for the package. If your program has a somewhat
- unique name, you can just use the name of the program as the archive
- name. If you are posting a patch to a previously posted bit of source
- code, you would do something like "name/patchN", where N is the number
- of the patch. If you post source code in multiple parts, do
- "name/part1", "name/part2", etc. The second line should contain a
- return mail address for you.
-
- This informational header (note that it is an auxiliary header, in
- the body of the posting, NOT part of the main message header) is used
- by some automatic archiving software to maintain alt.sources archives
- automatically. There are other useful fields you may want to put in
- the auxiliary header; if you are curious, see the documentation for
- the "rkive" program in the comp.sources.misc archives to find out what
- they are.
-
- 4) Make sure to mention, near the top of your posting (or near the
- top of your first posting, if you are posting a multi-posting
- package), exactly what the package is. If there is a README file,
- either include that at the top or (if you are using shar) make it the
- first thing in the first shar file. People should not have to search
- through the entire package just to figure out what it is.
-
-
- Where is alt.sources archived?
-
- See the article entitled "How to find sources (READ THIS BEFORE
- POSTING)" in alt.sources.wanted and comp.sources.wanted to find out
- how to search through the alt.sources archives and how to retrieve
- source code from the various archive sites.
-
- In general, alt.sources archives can be found in many places
- amongst which:
-
- ftp://ftp.fi.netbsd.org/pub/archive/alt.sources/
- http://groups.google.com/group/alt.sources/topics <--- recommended
-
-
- Please note that this is a non-exhaustive list. A search for
- "alt.sources archive" on any good search engine will point you
- to the right direction.
-
-
- Are the sources available elsewhere?
-
- This question was answered by:
- Victor Volkman <sysop@HAL9K.com>, CUG Acquisitions. Ed.:
- "The C Users Group wishes to further the distribution of alt.sources
- types of material to a wider audience. Since 1984, we had been
- distributing diskettes and CD-ROMs of C source code at very low costs.
- Today, we use the Internet to distribute all sources for free at:
- http://planetmirror.com/pub/cug/
-
- Archives cover all major platforms including: Atari, Amiga, Mac,
- PC (DOS and Windows), Sun, and most Unix machines. Material contributed
- to the CUG may also be published in the C Users Journal monthly. Please
- send mail to sysop@HAL9K.com if you would like your alt.sources code to
- be considered for the CUG. Also check: http://www.HAL9K.com/cug "
- [Please note that I have no links to the CUG whatsoever - OCL]
-
-
- Doesn't this introductory posting violate the guidelines outlined above?
-
- Yes. This posting is not a source-code posting, and therefore
- shouldn't really appear in alt.sources. However, the problem of
- non-source postings and source postings without auxiliary headers
- appearing in this newsgroup is severe enough that I hope to reduce it
- by posting this message. Other source newsgroups have similar
- introductory postings, posted by their moderators.
-
- No, I am not the "moderator" of alt.sources. I repeat, there is none.
- I have taken over the posting of this message since the early 1990s
- and it is being posted automagically by the FAQ server at MIT.
- There are probably people who think the guidelines I've mentioned above
- are wrong. If you think there's something wrong with this posting,
- please tell me about it, either by sending me an E-mail.
-
- Although there may be specific things in this posting that people
- disagree with, I think that I am, in general, outlining the consensus
- of the alt.sources community. However, if a sufficient number of
- people (let's say five or more) send me E-mail and tell me that they
- think I'm completely off base and shouldn't be posting this message at
- all, I'll put it to some sort of vote and see what the consensus is
- that way.
-
- Comments about, suggestions about or corrections to this posting are
- welcomed. If you would like to ask me to change this posting in some
- way, the method I appreciate most is for you to actually make the
- desired modifications to a copy of the posting, and then to send me
- the modified posting, or a context diff between my posted version and
- your modified version (if you do the latter, make sure to include in
- your mail the "Version:" line from my posted version). Submitting
- changes in this way makes dealing with them easier for me and helps to
- avoid misunderstandings about what you are suggesting.
-
- --
- Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond, Ph.D. |--> Global Information Highway Limited
- http://www.gih.com/ocl.html | E-mail: <ocl@gih.com>
-
-