RFD: comp.os.msdos.djgpp

                                                REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION


Proposed Group: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Status: unmoderated
Distribution: world-wide
Proposer: Charles Sandmann <sandmann@clio.rice.edu>
Mentor: Afzal Ballim <afzal@divsun.unige.ch>
Gateway: to mailing list djgpp@sun.soe.clarkson.edu


Alternate Names: comp.os.msdos.programmer.djgpp, comp.os.djgpp, gnu.djgpp,
                                  comp.os.msdos.gnu.djgpp, comp.os.msdos.gnu-djgpp


Proposed Newsgroup line:
comp.os.msdos.djgpp DOS GNU C/C++ applications and programming


CHARTER:


comp.os.msdos.djgpp will be a newsgroup dedicated to all aspects of
DJGPP, which is a port of several GNU utilities and development tools
to DOS. Areas which would be welcome for discussion:


1. Support for applications compiled with this package
2. Installation and configuration advice
3. Help with environment specific features, such as hardware interrupts
4. Advice on porting code to this environment and status of ports
5. Discussions on adding features and new releases
6. Brief (20 lines or less) announcements of new or major release
      commercial/shareware/freeware products, with a pointer to
      web/ftp/email for more information. Products may be briefly
      mentioned in replies to specific problems.


Areas which would be inappropriate:


1. Material which is covered in the FAQ (available from oak.oakland.edu:
      /pub/msdos/djgpp/faq100.zip and other simtel mirrors). A mini-FAQ
      with a pointer to the full FAQ will be posted weekly.
2. Questions or bug reports on GNU code not specific to DJGPP. If the
      user cannot determine if a bug is DJGPP specific, an brief initial
      posting would be acceptable.
3. General programming questions.


RATIONALE:


There are hundreds of useful utilities (and thousands of programmers) which
use DJGPP to avoid the 640K memory barrier under DOS. Users often require
additional help getting this environment to work under the various
combinations of memory managers and DOS emulation environments (such
as OS/2, Windows, Windows NT).


This subject is currently supported by a mailing list, which has over 500
subscribers (some of which are local mail exploders and mail-to-local-news
gateways) and currently averages 26 messages per day (which has doubled each
year since 1992). There are an additional 500 subscribers to djgpp-announce,
which announces new ports and availability of new releases of the software.
The heavy traffic has caused a loss of readership, and a newsgroup would
enhance the ability to cross reference related information in other related
groups. A group in the comp.os.msdos hierarchy would enhance the awareness of
DOS users to the available applications and tools.


The proposed newsgroup will be linked to the djgpp mailing list through
a bi-directional gateway to provide for users without news access. The
gateway software (and node) have already been tested.




PROCEDURE:


This RFD is being issued in accordance with the guidelines set in the
"How To Create A Usenet Group" FAQ regularly posted to
news.announce.newsgroups. Please refer to this article if you have any
questions about newsgroup creation.


Please post any responses to this message in news.groups. If you use
the followup feature on your newsreader, this should happen automatically.
ALL discussion about the merits of this proposal should appear on news.groups.


Unless the discussion indicates a need to resubmit a new RFD, a Call For
Votes (CFV) will be posted approximately four weeks after posting of this RFD.


Please do not post any votes--When the CFV is posted, instructions will
be given out on how to mail your mail to the Independent Vote Counter.


This RFD will be (cross)-posted to the following groups:


news.announce.newgroups
news.groups
comp.os.msdos.misc
comp.os.msdos.programmer
comp.lang.c
comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
comp.compilers
gnu.misc.discuss


and to the mailing list djgpp@sun.soe.clarkson.edu.


To subscribe to djgpp, send e-mail to listserv@sun.soe.clarkson.edu and
in the message body put "add your-email-address djgpp" (without the quotes).
To unsubscribe to djgpp, send e-mail to the same address with the body
"delete your-email-address djgpp".

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