From: ziegast@rodan.UU.NET (Eric W. Ziegast)
Subject: Re: time for comp.unix.bsd.386
Reply-To: ziegast@uunet.uu.net (Eric W. Ziegast)
Organization: when necessary
Disclaimer: My opinions are mine alone, though I'd be happy if others agreed.
    <1992Aug22.130620.15015@husc3.harvard.edu>
    <1992Aug23.052605.14262@uniwa.uwa.edu.au>
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 10:31:04 GMT

brendan@cygnus.com writes:
>Any reason not to start a discussion for creating comp.unix.bsd.386?

You just did.  Most of the traffic in this group is related to the
386BSD operating system.  I believe that spawning off a group for
the development and questions regarding 386BSD would be better.  A
good name for it would be comp.os.386bsd.


jiu1@husc9.harvard.edu writes:
> Someone please do this!!!!!!  People like me who use true 4.xBSD
> UNIX need this group to talk about issues that concern 4.xBSD in
> general.  There has been just too much on 386BSD ...

I agree.  I've even put a '/386BSD/:k' in my KILL file.
I'm thankful to those 386BSD posters who add "386BSD" to their
Subject headers.


comrade@uniwa.uwa.edu.au writes:
> It looks to me like it's time.  Will c.u.bsd still have enough traffic
> to make it a viable group?  I think so.

Yes, see below.


terry@cs.weber.edu writes:
> This discussion has come up before.  You should:

Terry's suggestions lead one to think that it's only the 386BSD and
BSDI topics that are keeping this group alive.

> o	Find out just how many "plain old bsd questions" occur here as
> 	opposed to comp.unix.questions.

General BSD discussion is what this group is for, isn't it?
The 386BSD never started out with their own group.  They took over
this one.  At least the USL/BSDI/suit posters moved (most of) their
discussion to alt.suit.att-bsdi.

The 386BSD people talk more about bugs/failures/successes/questions
about 386BSD than topics regarding BSD in a broader sense.  For
those who don't care about 386BSD, it's a waste of bandwidth.

Those of you doing 386BSD development, wouldn't you rather have your
own newsgroup anyway?  386BSD more than deserves it's own group. :^)

> o	Name a better place besides a bunch of 4.3 kernel and app hackers
> 	to ask a BSD question.

Could you be more specific?

> o	Find out how much traffic would be left if 386BSD/BSDI moved elsewhere.

Ok, I parsed/browsed through 757 comp.unix.bsd postings from the past
two weeks and found:

	386BSD: 498+ articles relating to bugs, successes, failures, questions
		and answers relating to 386BSD.

	BSDI:	~70 articles related to the USL lawsuit and BSDI info.
		Aside from the lawsuit, BSDI traffic is rather light (less
		than 5 articles?).  Most suit-related discussion spawned
		off into alt.suit.att-bsdi and a couple other groups with
		virtual.lawyers.

	386:	There were several (~50) general 386 postings relating
		to Linux, X386, other 386 Unixes (particularly SysV), PC
		equipment, etc.

	General:There were about 30 postings which were markedly general to
		BSD.  For example, the $8000 question, BSD 4.4, issues re-
		lating to other (non-PC) BSD platforms, etc.

	Misc:	There were 109 messages that I could not easily tell from
		looking at them (by themselves) what their scope was.  I'd
		say easily that at least half of them are 386BSD followups.

It's about time that an official call for discussion be made.
All that's needed is a name and a charter for the new group.
--
Eric Ziegast
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd