From: eah@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew)
Subject: biz.sco.* newsgroups/mlists FAQ (periodic posting)
Organization: XeniTec Consulting Services, Kitchener, ON, CANADA
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 07:01:20 GMT
Summary: how to subscribe (and why)
Keywords: biz.sco, newsgroups, mailing lists


            Evolution of SCO newsgroups and Mailing Lists
            ---------------------------------------------
   
   Many readers enjoyed the opportunity to obtain and contribute useful
   information on SCO Open Desktop since 1990 through the ancestral USENET
   newsgroup sco.opendesktop or it's companion mailing list.  Similarly,
   there was a demonstrated need for an information and discussion forum
   for SCO products in general.
   
   With the increasing demand for accessibility and for additional SCO
   newsgroups, many current contributors including those who have been
   active in circulating SCO related newsgroups and mailing lists felt
   that the readership would be best served by creating a biz.sco.*
   hierarchy to improve propagation (and hence availability) worldwide.

   biz.sco.{opendesktop,general,announce} were newgrouped May 1, 1991 in
   accordance with accepted procedure within "biz".  Given the content,
   this change relocated the "opendesktop" newsgroup to a more proper place
   within the established usenet news hierarchy and adds the new "announce"
   and "general" groups.  On Aug 1, 1991, the former "sco-list@uunet.uu.net"
   became "scogen" in keeping with established biz.sco.* naming conventions.

   biz.sco.binaries and biz.sco.sources were newgrouped on June 1, 1992
   to respectively accommodate SCO Xenix, UNIX and OpenDesktop specific
   binaries and source code.  The binaries and sources news groups are
   moderated, with moderator and submissions information and policy
   outlined in the periodic imformational postings in those newsgroups.
   Respecting USENET etiquite, these newsgroups are _not_ gated to
   mailing lists, but are archived on several nuucp and ftp hosts.
   
   Subject to the USENET NEWS hierarchies carried by your upstream feed,
   you are now able to subscribe to the following:
   
        Newsgroup                    mailing list subscription
        ---------                    -------------------------
        biz.sco.opendesktop          scoodt-request@xenitec.on.ca
        biz.sco.general              scogen-request@xenitec.on.ca
        biz.sco.announce             scoann-request@xenitec.on.ca
	biz.sco.sources			<none>
	biz.sco.binaries		<none>

   You are _strongly_ encouraged to obtain these newsgroups via USENET
   NEWS mechanisms as opposed to via mail.  Anyone having difficulty
   arranging a news feed for these newsgroups is welcome to email the
   undersigned and I'll do my best to help.  We also offer all required
   software in source code form via anonymous FTP and UUCP, as do many
   archive sites.  If after having explored all options you are still
   unable to receive biz.sco.* as news, you may subscribe to the mailing
   lists.
   
   All 3 newsgroups are bi-directionally gated to companion mailing lists,
   so anyone not having access to NEWS but who does have a UUCP or Internet
   mail feed can still participate fully using email.  Mailing list
   subscribers should send their request to the appropriate "mailing list
   subscription" address above, including in the message body:

	Add: subscriber_address		-eg-
	Add: your_logname@site.do.main  -or-
	Add: up!stream!yoursite!your_logname

   Inclusion of an alternative working bang-path relative to a well know
   major functional site might prove beneficial.  (Deletions are handled
   the same way, simply substitute "Delete:" for "Add:", ensuring that
   you use the exact same address you subscribed with.  Mailing list
   subscribers receive "how to post to the mlist" article submission
   information when their request is processed.  If you don't receive
   an acknowledgement within a few days, check your routing and try a test
   message via xenitec.on.ca back to your host.  In such cases, it's likely
   that someone, somewhere, is bouncing mail replies to you (and would do
   the same with mailing list traffic), and you'll want to resolve your
   connectivity problem before trying to subscribe again.  Mailing list
   subscriptions are free, subject to whatever arrangements you may have
   with the site(s) feeding you.
   
   Should you receive no response or experience a sudden and prolonged
   drop to zero volume on one of the mailing lists, this indicates that we
   are no longer able to find a working route to your site.  We loose a
   handful of subscribers this way each month.  If this happens to you,
   please email us your known working bang-path relative to a major site.

   What's in the newsgroups (and mailing_lists where applicable):
   
   biz.sco.opendesktop: Technical questions and answers and informative
                        postings relating to past, present, and future
                        implementations of the SCO OpenDeskTop operating
                        environment and it's various bundled components.
   
   biz.sco.general:     Questions, answers and comments on SCO products
                        in general, and of course resulting discussions.
   
   biz.sco.announce:    SCO and SCO Developer product announcements of
			interest to current and future users of SCO products,
			and to SCO developers, resellers and distributors.
                        (moderated, followups directed to biz.sco.general).

   biz.sco.sources:	SysV or BSD source code for useful programs and
			utilities, modified to compile and run with various
			incarnations of SCO Xenix, UNIX, and/or OpenDesktop.

   biz.sco.binaries:	Binary packages compiled from SCO compatible source
			code, often from source posted in biz.sco.sources
			and often installable using the SCO "custom" utility.
--
  Ed. A. Hew,    <edhew@xenitec.on.ca>    ....!uunet.ca!xenitec!eah
  XeniTec Consulting Services, Kitchener ON, Canada +1 519 570 9848
          [biz.sco.* newsgroups and mailing lists godfather]