Okay, here's a draft RFD. I've already run it by the Usenet group-advice
cabal and they have not responded in 12 hours; which is not to say that
they still won't, it is Sunday after all.

If you know the email address of the NetBSD hackers list, then please
send it to me. I'm too busy or too lazy or both to go off in search of
it.

If you have constructive comments or suggestions then send them to me.
If you flame me, I reserve the right to respond in kind, and I probably
will. ;-)


SUMMARY:

    Create fourth levels in comp.unix.bsd: c.u.b.{386bsd,bsdi,freebsd,netbsd}
    Create topic groups:                   comp.unix.bsd.*
    After a transition period:             delete comp.os.386bsd


NEW GROUPS:

    The proposal is to create eight new groups. They are:

    comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc
    comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.announce
    comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc
    comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.announce
    comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
    comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce -- moderated by Jordan Hubbard.
    comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc
    comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.announce.

    *.announce groups will be unmoderated unless volunteers step forward.

    Jordan Hubbard -- jkh@freefall.cdrom.com


RATIONALE:

    There are now at least four independent variations of an operating 
    system based on UC Berkeley's BSD Net2 and/or 4.4lite UNIX source 
    distributions. Currently discussion of these four fall into either 
    comp.unix.bsd or one of the comp.os.386bsd groups. c.o.386bsd.* was 
    originally intended for discussion about Bill and Lynn Jolitz' version, 
    known as 386BSD. Over the past two years two splinter groups have spun 
    off FreeBSD and NetBSD variations of 386BSD, and BSDI, Inc. has a 
    commercial offering known as BSD/OS, formerly known as BSD/386. 
    Discussion specific to 386BSD has tapered off to near nil as the 
    original authors have ceased to support it. Most traffic in the 
    existing c.o.386bsd groups centers around either FreeBSD or NetBSD, 
    and occasionally BSDI's BSD/OS.

    It seems that the BSD user community might be better served by having 
    groups specifically related to the variation that they are using. 
    Despite their common ancestry, the differences between the goals and 
    feature sets are quite wide, and it is often confusing to differentiate 
    between them when discussion is all lumped into the same group. 
    Furthermore, NetBSD has, and FreeBSD will soon have, support for other 
    architectures, so grouping them in a hierarchy whose name suggests 
    that it is devoted to the Intel x86 family is definitely inappropriate.

    While comp.os.386bsd currently has several groups in its hierarchy, the
    current level of 386BSD specific traffic in them doesn't seem to warrant 
    replicating those groups under this proposal. Addition groups can be 
    added in the future as traffic dictates.


CHARTERS:

    comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.announce:

        This newsgroup is for announcements relating to the 386bsd 
        operating system. Things appropriate for the .announce group
        would include announcements of new versions of 386bsd,
        announcements of major software releases for 386bsd (e.g. new 
        version of X11 for 386bsd), announcements of fixes for major 
        bugs, and the like.  FAQs relating to 386bsd should also be 
        cross-posted to this group.

    comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:

        Discussion about 386bsd which does not fall into the area
        of coverage of any of the other 386bsd groups.  Things
        posted here should not be crossposted to the other 386bsd
        groups.

    comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.announce:

        This newsgroup is for announcements relating to the BSD/OS
        operating system. Things appropriate for the .announce group
        would include announcements of new versions of BSD/OS,
        announcements of major software releases for BSD/OS (e.g. new 
        version of X11 for BSD/OS), announcements of fixes for major 
        bugs, and the like.  FAQs relating to BSD/OS should also be 
        cross-posted to this group.

    comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:

        Discussion about BSD/OS which does not fall into the area
        of coverage of any of the other bsdi groups.  Things posted 
        here should not be crossposted to the other bsdi groups.

    comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.announce:

        This newsgroup is for announcements relating to the FreeBSD
        operating system. Things appropriate for the .announce group
        would include announcements of new versions of FreeBSD,
        announcements of major software releases for FreeBSD (e.g. new 
        version of X11 for FreeBSD), announcements of fixes for major 
        bugs, and the like.  FAQs relating to FreeBSD should also be 
        cross-posted to this group.

    comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:

        Discussion about FreeBSD which does not fall into the area
        of coverage of any of the other freebsd groups.  Things posted 
        here should not be crossposted to the other freebsd groups.

    comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.announce:

        This newsgroup is for announcements relating to the NetBSD
        operating system. Things appropriate for the .announce group
        would include announcements of new versions of NetBSD,
        announcements of major software releases for NetBSD (e.g. new 
        version of X11 for NetBSD), announcements of fixes for major 
        bugs, and the like.  FAQs relating to NetBSD should also be 
        cross-posted to this group.

    comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:

        Discussion about NetBSD which does not fall into the area
        of coverage of any of the other netbsd groups.  Things posted 
        here should not be crossposted to the other netbsd groups.