Why there will be no resolution to the yEnc war.

I'm going to try to sum up what I've learned in the discussions (?) of
yEnc and in my reading.

Against yEnc:

After reading Jeremy Nixon's anti-yEnc arguments, I can see that the
real problem is not that yEnc isn't an improvement, but rather that it
was not enough of an improvement over UU and didn't even attempt to
solve some of its problems. Nixon was worried that it had already
become the new standard 5 years ago. I can see his point--sometimes
people settle for what is at best a partial fix to a given problem,
and then effort is diverted away from seeking a more thorough fix
(this is actually a common problem in the big organizations where I've
spent my career--people "settle")..

yEnc's improvement is big or small, depending on what you're posting.
For the relatively small jpegs posted here, a 30% reduction in size by
using yEnc doesn't amount to much in absolute terms. For an MP3 such
as I posted in multimedia aviation, 30% amounts to much more, and for
a big AVI, 30% would be quite a lot. That's why yEnc is dominant in
the multimedia and audio groups. But in a still photo group, the
pro-yEnc folks can't claim that yEnc has much practical superiority.

Of course, as some have noted, even a little means something to
somebody with dial-up, or download restrictions, and I don't want to
be the classicallyy arrogant American who ignores the fact that access
isn't the same everywhere. (As an aside, that makes me wonder how we
look to other countries such as Japan, that have MUCH faster
broadband--in terms of broadband, we stand about the same as we do in
rail passenger transportation--far, far from the leading nations.)

For yEnc:

Even though it is only a little improvement, yEnc is unquestionably an
improvement in terms of encoded file size. It costs little or nothing
to get yEnc decoding ability, it requires no technical expertise, and
it does not require a hardware upgrade of any kind. Consequently,
the price paid for a little improvement is a little price.

(By the way, if Nixon's arguments were taken seriously, what would
replace UU is something that would REALLY make the anti-yEnc crowd
shriek, although it would also represent much more of an improvement
over UU--her agrues for an upgraded version of MIME encoding.)

Finally, arguments that reference "the standard" or "guidelines" in an
unmoderated group lacking any charter will never gain any traction.
I've been on both sides of those kinds of arguments, and I can tell
you what happened in every last instance.

______________

So it comes down to this: one side says "why post in yEnc, the
improvement is not so great' while the other says "you're free to add
yEnc encoding, and the cost is little or nothing." Neither side has
anything even approaching a slam-dunk argument. yEnc is NOT so
clearly superior that everyone should get yEnc decoding ability.
Adding yEnc decoding ability is NOT so costly or difficult that it
unreasonably blocks people from viewing files.

That's why there will be no resolution--the arguments are weak on both
sides. That's why it can only remain a choice. Live and let live--
the lesson they have yet to learn in the Middle East.

That's my position. Don acknowledged that I never told anyone to
leave. In fact, I never told anyone to do anything (although a few
were pleased to tell me what to do). I'll tell you what you COULD do
if you CHOSE, but that's about it. In turn, if somebody chose a new
method of encoding, and I knew their pictures were worthwhile, I'd
expect to do a little work to get their pictures--it isn't up to them
to change to suit me. They already did the work of taking, editing,
and posting the pictures, so I'm not going to moan about having to do
something new to get them. I've had to learn lots of things in the
microcomputer age, but it is just the price of getting the goodies the
age has to offer so I am not complaining one bit. As a
very-near-geezer I'm still awestruck by such things as the fact that
I've seen thousands of cool aircraft photos FOR FREE, IN MY OWN HOME!
Wowee! Is that cool or what? How I wish all this stuff had been
available when I was a kid! Then maybe I wouldn't have painted my
Corsair model pink with yellow stripes! (Kidding!!!)