CALL FOR VOTES -- comp.sources.reviewed

[karsten at tfl.dk]

In article <1991Feb28.160555.8446 at sparky.IMD.Sterling.COM>, kent at sparky.IMD.Sterling.COM (Kent Landfield) writes:
> In article <1991Feb28.053121.7739 at rick.doc.ca> andrew at calvin.doc.ca (Andrew Patrick) writes:
>>This is an official Call for Votes for the proposed newsgroup
>>"comp.sources.reviewed".  "Comp.sources.reviewed" will be a moderated
>>newsgroup (moderator: Andrew Patrick [andrew at calvin.doc.ca]) with the
>>following charter:
>>
>>    "Comp.sources.reviewed" is a moderated newsgroup for the
>>    distribution of program sources that have been subjected to a Peer
>>    Review process.  Similar to the process used for academic
>>    journals, submissions are sent to a moderator who then sends the
>>    sources to Peer Review volunteers for evaluation.  
> 
> Question: What types of packages are you envisioning on reviewing ?
> Packages like elm, mush, perl, ... have their own beta test groups
> who usually do a solid job of testing their software. For that matter,
> any software that has a beta test team would probably not need or have
> any reason to post through this group.  
 
Those packages submitted to the moderator would be reviewed if possible.

> Question: Are you planning on accepting any type of software running
> on unix, dos, coherent, minix, acorn, amiga ...? Or will this be focused 
> for a specific operational environment? How will you locate enough 
> reviewers for packages that run in other than the major environments.
 
I know many would like the group to be one operating system only, but
USENET can be carried on other operating systems.  This is written on
VAX/VMS.  Currently we got a group for reviewed UNIX software, but
none for other operting systems.  There should be a group for other
operating systems.

Many of the bested public domain packages have been ported from UNIX
to other operating systems, and some the other way.  In the future, we
can expect people will comply with the posix standards, which will
supported on many operating systems.  So in the future packages will
not be for one operating system.  For these reasons it would be stupid
to limit the group to one or a few operating systems.

> Question: What happens when you cannot find enough people to review the
> package ? Is the submission rejected ?? Are we going to be seeing a lot
> of "requests for reviewers" on the net ?
 
There would be no alternative to rejecting such packages, and ask the
submitter of the code to post it to some other group.  My guess is
that "reguest for reviewers" will be rare because most public domain
software is written for a few popular operating systems.  Andrew has
already 20-30 reviewers.

> Question: This whole thing seems to have started as an emotional reaction
> to delays in postings to c.s.unix. What are the expected time delays in
> submissions through this group ??  Just the setup to evaluate a package
> by your description is going to take a bit of time. The review by multiple
> people will take time. [ Even the reviewers have real jobs... :-) ] If
> there are any questions, problem etc., that will take more time.  My
> guess is that you are looking at a 45 to 60 day delay on the optimistic
> side. Doesn't this procedure usually take 6 to 9 months for submissions 
> to be accepted and published in academic journals ??
 
Journals use paper mail for transporting papers.  After the paper has
been reviewed, it must be typeset, and proff read.  These things takes
time.  Besides, papers for conferences are normally reviewed in a few
months.

The moderator will need ca 1 week for assigning moderators and
submitting the code to the reviewers.  The reviewers could use one
month, and the moderator one week for collecting the results and
taking action.  That's 6 weeks, and You must admit that both the
moderator and the reviewers have been given enough time.  It would of
course take more time in case the code has to be corrected, and so
what?  Then the whole USENET won't vaste time on installing a
collecting of bugs.

> I can see that there could be a use for this group but I don't think that
> there has been enough discussion for a real call for votes.  In the 
> discussion period I have seen a grand total of 5 articles on the topic and
> three of them have come from Andrew Patrick [andrew at calvin.doc.ca].  If
> we are going to do this, lets do it right. There has not been enough
> discussion to warrant a vote.  My intention here is to try to get some
> information and to stimulate a discussion so that any vote is based on 
> merit and not emotion...
 
Perhaps.  I have only seen a posting raising the first point of your
posting, i.e., which operating systems should be supported.  Have I
missed some postings, or why didn't You raise the other points in the
period of discussion?

> 			-Kent+
> -- 
> Kent Landfield                   INTERNET: kent at sparky.IMD.Sterling.COM
> Sterling Software, IMD           UUCP:     uunet!sparky!kent
> Phone:    (402) 291-8300         FAX:      (402) 291-4362
> Please send comp.sources.misc-related mail to kent at uunet.uu.net.