bass@dmsd.UUCP (07/10/86)
What is stargate going to cost?
A simple question with a difficult answer.
It's difficult for three reasons, all of which haven't been openly discussed
by the proponents of stargate -- but must have come to mind while tring to
figure out how to make a commercial service from usenet.
1) As a commercial service stargate based news traffic WILL cost
MORE money. The fee for most sites will be larger than the current
costs to access news via uucp based usenet. This is a simple deduction
since most sites currently recieve news free from another local site.
2) As a commercial service stargate based news traffic CANNOT be
rebroadcast to ANY OTHER machine or site without paying the fee for
that site as well. This will be difficult to do since the current
community ASSUMES free access and distribution. This is a simple
deduction since the news link is planned to be scrambled AND without
such a restriction the subscriber base will be less than a few
hundred sites.
3) The service is to be accessed via local cable operators who own
the medium AND the vertical retrace time. They will want a cut of the
fees at some point. This is a simple deduction since they have
to make a living too -- and data transmission within the broadcast
industry is becoming big business. IF they take 30-50% of the fee
it WILL double the cost of service.
The current usenet is estimated at about 2,000 sites many of which are
multiple machines within the same organization -- I don't see most of these
sites paying multiple site fees for each machine. Particulary since the
largest segment of these sites are University, Government, and AT&T sites.
Of the current sites, many are operated by private individuals who access
usenet with a local tele call for FREE -- I don't see many of these folks
accessing stargate if the fee is $50/month, and almost none at $100/month.
To install and service 1,000 sites will require a staff of atleast 10 people
to handle sales, customer questions, cable operator questions, decoder shipping
, decoder repair/testing, and general admistrative functions. An estimated
fully burdened facility and staff budget probably exceeds $1,200,000 without
including fees paid for the satelite channel, cable operators, investors,
or other people with their hands out. At this level of service the low end cost
per user is about $1,200,000 / 1,000 * 2 (cable operator markup) = $2,400/yr.
I doubt that 50% of the installed USENET machines will become paying subscribers
in the first year.
Since customer service needs will grow with the userbase I don't expect
much economy of scale until year 2 or 3 where the installed base will become
a cash cow. The real costs are likely to be 3-4 times higher when you
include advertising, startup cash outlays, etc... it will take one big
subsidy to get it started ... I question if it will fly .... and will the
result still be a usenet like service? Why will people want to moderate the
traffic for such a big business for free?? Why should USENIX subsidize it?
Particularly if uucp/arpa/bitnet based usenet stays in tact as a cost free
competitor. I don't favor disbanding the technical communication within
usenet for what is likely to be an expensive, general public, mass marketed
data service. No matter HOW NEAT THE IDEA OF SATELITES SOUND.
To make stargate large enough to break make a profit, it will have to
target larger populations like the IBM, Apple, Atari, and other computer user
populations with a low cost BBS access competitve to Compuserve, etc.
It will take a long time to build the user base AND a lot of money.
With the usenet traffic opened up to such a large general population I question
the quality of the resulting service as a technical forum.
A lot more can be done to improve the cost of the usenet long haul connections,
which WILL LIKELY COST LESS THAN stargate.
1) Upgrade the longhaul traffic to 9600/18000 baud or faster modems. The
cost payback is several months, particularly if they can be purchased
as a block buy with an agressive deal. I would guess that a group
buy could get such modems near/below $1,000 each for a 100+ unit buy.
I would be happy to coordinate such a buy.
2) Upgrade the uucp server to be full duplex --- IE carry traffic in
both directions concurrently -- this will likely improve the
connection costs about 30% for backbones and have little affect
on leaf sites.
3) Implement a better I-have/I-want transmission scheme that is
real-time. This alone could reduce phone traffic in the backbone
by another 10% or more. With a full duplex communication channel this
is really feasible.
4) Negotiate a reduced flatrate DDS nite service AS A GROUP with
one of the long haul carriers -- this could drop the costs another
30% or more. This could be made a big PR deal with agressive bidding.
5) evaluate X.25 major city interconnections with one or more of the
major data carriers based on a flat group rate. This could be even
cheaper than DDS. Again this could be made a big PR deal.
High technology like stargate is neat -- but I think we are just starting
another expensive data service by forging on past the experiment.
I think that USENIX should spend a matching sum to what it has on stargate
to evaluate alternate technologies and their implementation/service costs
before proceeding with stargate. I would be happy to act as a consultant
for such a project.
NOTE: please don't pick at the above loosely laid estimates .... but rather
present a COMPLETE and FEASIBLE estimated BUDGET for stargate service and
costs. ONLY THEN can we start to compare costs.
I am also starting a survey of current transmission costs. Please mail me a
detail of the following for your site(s):
1) Your site name, sites you feed, sites that feed you.
2) Transmission medium for each feed and what the cost of the
medium is ... if the medium is phone service, who is your
carrier, what are their rates, and what were your monthly
phone charges to each site for the last 6 months? What percentage
of the traffic do you/they pay for?
3) What modem service do you currently use (1200/2400/9600?) and
what is the effect service rate ... check SYSLOG and estimate
by dividing bytes by seconds for news batches. Is your feed
currently compressed?
4) Would you upgrade to 9600 DDS service to carry news?
5) How many estimated news readers are at your site.
I'll post a summary to the net.
--
John Bass (DBA:DMS Design)
DMS Design (System Design, Performance and Arch Consultants)
{dual,fortune,polyslo,hpda}!dmsd!bass (805) 541-1575lauren@vortex.UUCP (07/13/86)
My initial temptation upon reading John's 8K message where he attempts to prove that Stargate can't work was to generate a point by point explanation and refutation. But upon reflection, I realized that such a message could easily exceed 100K bytes, and frankly, I don't have the time for that right now. And the result would be even longer messages bouncing back and forth as the argument went on and on and on.... It is because of this that we are avoiding trying to carry out our Stargate work in the "fishbowl" of netnews. We could easily spend most of our time generating netnews messages to try explain everything rather than working on the project itself. And much of what we're working on simply cannot proceed with publication of every detail at this stage! So instead, I'll just make the following "simple" statements. I hope people will excuse me if I don't have the time to publicly answer every replying article that might result from this one. Many of the details of Stargate, including organizational, cost, and some technical issues, are proceeding behind closed doors right now, of necessity. We're releasing as much information as we can, whenever we can, and we expect to be able to make some definitive statements regarding organization and cost issues at the next Usenix conference. Given the lack of details, it is only natural that some persons might get false ideas or operate under false assumptions if they speculate upon what we're trying to accomplish. And that's what's happened with John--he's speculating, and his message is incredibly full of false premises and inaccurate information. His message shows that he does not know what we are doing with Stargate, what our goals are, how we are organizing, or what sorts of entities and organizations are involved. Nor does he seem to understand many of the fundamental problems of Usenet and the critical fact that faster machine-to-machine netnews transmission, even if FREE, does not significantly help the systemic problems of the existing network which is attempting to broadcast articles to a very widespread collection of points, articles which currently exhibit an ever increasing proportion of what might be politely termed "extraneous" material. Frankly, virtually every one of his assumptions was either seriously flawed or totally incorrect, ranging from his idea of what sorts of services we plan to provide, to who we would be providing services to and on what basis, how we would be organized, technical assumptions, cost assumptions, etc. And as I mentioned above, he also seems to misunderstand the fundamental structural and operations problems of the existing Usenet. Now, admittedly, John does not have access to the "inside scoop" concerning what we're doing with Stargate. It isn't any kind of top secret--but we have been restricting some details to those persons who are directly involved during this formative period. Given his lack of information, it is unfortunate that he chose to set forth inaccurate assumptions about the project and then proceed to draw inaccurate conclusions based on those assumptions. Assume that we are not idiots! This project does not consist only of a bunch of techies working with high-tech toys. Oh yes, the toys are there--but a lot more is there too. We are working closely not only with technical people but with communications and networking business, cable industry, and other entities who have a broad backround in understanding the complex issues involved in bringing something like this to fruition. We also understand the issues surrounding the current Usenet, its history, growth, and operations. To put it bluntly, we have a pretty good idea of what we're doing. This isn't to say we'll definitely succeed, of course. But things are looking good, and I think we have a very good chance of providing a range of useful and economical services that will be of benefit to a vast number of organizations and persons. As always, I wish to express my appreciation to those of you who have actively supported this project, and I want to assure you that the work, both technical and organizational, is proceeding well. Thanks! --Lauren-- P.S. As I warned above, I may not (in fact, almost certainly will not) have the time to respond to every article on this topic that may now appear in netnews. Please do not consider my silence to be anything other than a budgeting of my available time! Persons who are interested in the reality regarding the project, or who are interested in future participation in the evolving project are of course invited to contact us directly. Thanks again! --LW--
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (07/13/86)
(Disclaimer: I have no official affiliation with Stargate.) > 1) As a commercial service stargate based news traffic WILL cost > MORE money. The fee for most sites will be larger than the current > costs to access news via uucp based usenet. This is a simple deduction > since most sites currently recieve news free from another local site. If you follow the paths far enough, you find a site which is paying to get the stuff in. Probably paying quite a bit. As one of those sites, I have little sympathy for freeloaders. Did you really expect that it would stay free forever? Looking at it another way, if your local bill-paying site gives it to you free now, why should they cut it off? > 2) As a commercial service stargate based news traffic CANNOT be > rebroadcast to ANY OTHER machine or site without paying the fee for > that site as well... I would assume that Stargate would permit local rebroadcasting. If they don't, a lot of people are going to be very unhappy. I'm not an expert on the legalities of this sort of thing, but I would assume that Stargate can waive fees for subsequent machines in the area if they want to. > ...the current community ASSUMES free access and distribution. I assure you that there is nothing free about it. Ask any backbone site. > This is a simple > deduction since the news link is planned to be scrambled... My understanding is that it's not so much a question of deliberate scrambling as of using proprietary technology to solve the (difficult) problem of putting a robust high-speed data stream into a video signal without hurting picture quality. There is a large gap between theory and practice here; it's *not* as simple as an elementary textbook would make you think. And as you point out, few people can be expected to help pay the bills unless it's compulsory. How much did you contribute to your local backbone site's phone bills lately? > 3) The service is to be accessed via local cable operators who own > the medium AND the vertical retrace time. They will want a cut... The service can also be accessed via a dish, so there is a bound on how much this can add to the costs. Also, my understanding was that the vertical interval belongs to Southern Satellite Systems, although possibly it changes ownership when it hits the cable. > The current usenet is estimated at about 2,000 sites many of which are > multiple machines within the same organization -- I don't see most of these > sites paying multiple site fees for each machine... "Multiple machines? Us? Heavens no; only one of our machines gets that traffic." I don't see most such sites paying multiple site fees, either, and the Stargate people would be silly to expect it. The Stargate people are not dummies, guys, nor are they vicious capitalist swine intent on making bundles of money at our expense. If Stargate costs a lot more than Usenet, few people will bother. They *know* that. > [much discussion of possible costs] > ... I question if it will fly .... and will the > result still be a usenet like service? I hope it will be a *better* service. Usenet is far from ideal. > Why will people want to moderate the > traffic for such a big business for free?? One obvious expense is that moderator time is not available in unlimited amounts for free. This is *already* a problem. Moderators will probably have to be paid something. > Why should USENIX subsidize it? Maybe because they think it has a chance of benefiting us all. > Particularly if uucp/arpa/bitnet based usenet stays in tact as a cost free > competitor... Here we come to the heart of the matter. Usenet *won't* stay intact as a cost free competitor, because it is *not* "cost free" and never has been. Its costs are rising steadily, to the point where it clearly cannot survive in its present form too much longer. Those sites who pay Long Distance bills are subsidizing the freeloaders. THIS WILL NOT CONTINUE FOREVER! > I don't favor disbanding the technical communication within > usenet for what is likely to be an expensive, general public, mass marketed > data service... The technical communication is already a minor part of Usenet, and getting more minor all the time. Considering Usenet's steadily-rising costs, it will disband itself before too many more years whether we like it or not. The question is, will there be an alternative in place when the crunch comes? > To make stargate large enough to break make a profit, it will have to > target larger populations... This is very sensitive to what assumptions you make about costs. Again, you are being silly if you assume that the Stargate people are either stupid or venal. They have thought of these issues. > With the usenet traffic opened up to such a large general population > I question the quality of the resulting service as a technical forum. In case you haven't noticed, we already have this problem. Have you read net.unix lately? > A lot more can be done to improve the cost of the usenet long haul > connections, which WILL LIKELY COST LESS THAN stargate. And do less for us, in the long run. Have you plotted the rise in traffic against time? I recently posted five years of data to net.news. Try it. Then figure out how much time each proposed cost-cutting measure buys us. It's usually not a lot. By the way, I'm glad to see an acknowledgement from you that Usenet is *not* free. > 1) Upgrade the longhaul traffic to 9600/18000 baud or faster modems... Don't forget compatibility with older modems; few sites have phone lines that they can afford to *officially* dedicate to Usenet. Don't forget processing time; vanilla uucp on 750-class machines can't consistently run even a 4800-baud line at full speed. Don't forget that most of those modems are very new and still have problems, notably in areas like flow control between them and the host. > 2) Upgrade the uucp server to be full duplex --- IE carry traffic in > both directions concurrently -- this will likely improve the > connection costs about 30% for backbones and have little affect > on leaf sites. Are you volunteering to do it? Usenet has never had any shortage of people with great ideas, but we do have a shortage of people implementing them. I also suspect that your estimate of cost improvement is high. > 3) Implement a better I-have/I-want transmission scheme that is > real-time... This amounts to redoing the transport mechanism completely, since uucp doesn't support this. That is a lot of work; I sure don't have time to tackle it. > 4) Negotiate a reduced flatrate DDS nite service AS A GROUP with > one of the long haul carriers... Again, are you volunteering to do it? Don't forget that we really do need data-quality transmission, which is a lot scarcer than cruddy voice circuits. Also don't forget that many sites can get their Usenet phone bills past the bean-counters only because they are *not* explicitly identified as such. > 5) evaluate X.25 major city interconnections... This is already being done, by many people independently. It helps. It doesn't constitute a long-term solution to the problems, though. > High technology like stargate is neat -- but I think we are just starting > another expensive data service by forging on past the experiment. Since our current low-technology network isn't going to hold together too much longer, Stargate sounds good to me. > I think that USENIX should spend a matching sum to what it has on stargate > to evaluate alternate technologies and their implementation/service costs > before proceeding with stargate... In case you didn't hear about it, Usenix solicited proposals of precisely this kind recently. I believe they got, essentially, none. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
bass@dmsd.UUCP (07/15/86)
In article <945@vortex.UUCP>, lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes: > > Many of the details of Stargate, including organizational, cost, > and some technical issues, are proceeding behind closed doors right now, > of necessity. We're releasing as much information as we can, whenever > we can, and we expect to be able to make some definitive statements > regarding organization and cost issues at the next Usenix conference. Lauren ... there is no reason in (*&^(*&^ that the basic outline of a Comercial Stargate should remain behind closed doors at this point ... you have been playing with the basic issues and estimates for nearly more than a year, and approaching two. You should be able to summarize the proposed organization, it's staffing, and budget within 50%. And you darn well should be able to give some statement about the subscriber base demographics and the assumptions behind it. I had substantial questions about how this might work when you started a year and a half ago and under presure was quiet eagerly awaiting the soon to be released details at the next meeting (a year ago). The time to wait is past .... > Given the lack of details, it is only natural that some persons might > get false ideas or operate under false assumptions if they speculate > upon what we're trying to accomplish. And that's what's happened > with John--he's speculating, and his message is incredibly full of > false premises and inaccurate information. You betcha and it's going to get worse ... I don't think I'm working under false assumptions and we are free to speculate until you make the info public. I've been in and around this business more than 15 years and know what it costs to run an organization to support such a service. What I DON'T want is to have Stargate give their service away cheaply for a year to kill the existing net, then say "Opps we (really you) made a mistake, the prices are going to have to triple to make it pay for itself". It is VERY important for usenet members to understand budgets, costings, and proposed subscriber base information prior to thinking about switching from uucp based phone service to Stargate. You should be able to outline several possible senerios now based on the deals that various bidding companies are presenting ... or is this a single source deal??? I have spent many hours in multiplan tossing about possible subscriber base demographics played against estimated budgets and THE CURRENT estimated USENET costs --- MY GUESS (and thats the best one can do given your long silence) is that the TOTAL Cost of news service will go up by between 3 (no restrictions on multiple sites or local uucp retransmission) and 10 (every site/machine must pay a fee) times depending on how the costs get spread and what the real service costs are. spread. If the TOTAL cost is the same ... no big deal. If it is going to go up, then lets make sure that we CHOOSE (not have ramed down us) the proper replacement for tele/uucp based news service. > > His message shows that he does not know what we are doing with > Stargate, what our goals are, how we are organizing, or what > sorts of entities and organizations are involved. Nor does he seem > to understand many of the fundamental problems of Usenet and the critical > fact that faster machine-to-machine netnews transmission, even if FREE, > does not significantly help the systemic problems of the existing network > which is attempting to broadcast articles to a very widespread collection > of points, articles which currently exhibit an ever increasing proportion > of what might be politely termed "extraneous" material. This is a cheap shot ... I do understand the problems ... and much more objectively than those who can't see past Stargate as the answer .... I have been involved in the net for many years, watching it grow first as a technical forum, then as a flaming forum, and then as a social issues forum. These last two areas are the usenet down fall. Without this traffic uucp based usenet can return to a cost effective medium by using existing technology and services. I have been paying our usenet long distance bills (from SF where our feed is, to SLO is about 200 miles). I KNOW what usenet costs, I KNOW what the machine resource requirements are, AND I can see that Stargate is or will be just another information network like The Source, Compuserve, etc ... and will be just as expensive .... Tell us why we should help you start another commercial communications company to service the usenet community based on closed door discussions and that old, old line ... Trust me .... We have for more than a year ... now the clock has run out ... put the facts on the line ... What we ask is: Put the facts up NOW and prove us dead wrong if Stargate REALLY is cheaper ...... OR let the community judge this creation with open eyes and have the chance NOW to explore other alternatives to a Stargate monopoly. This posting is too long already ... I have complaint with nearly every assertion that Lauren made in his Non-informative reply.... -- John Bass (DBA:DMS Design) DMS Design (System Design, Performance and Arch Consultants) {dual,fortune,polyslo,hpda}!dmsd!bass (805) 541-1575
bass@dmsd.UUCP (07/15/86)
In article <6929@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: > > If you follow the paths far enough, you find a site which is paying to get > the stuff in. Probably paying quite a bit. As one of those sites, I have > little sympathy for freeloaders. Did you really expect that it would stay > free forever? Looking at it another way, if your local bill-paying site > gives it to you free now, why should they cut it off? Henry, being part of the backbone is a nice status deal, but for every OFFICAL backbone member there are between 5-20 who also pay toll charges to get and forward news. I am one, I see the bills every month, and since I own this small 7 person company, I write the checks every month. I forward the news to the local university free of charge as a service. I KNOW what it costs, you don't have a monopoly on that or the right to judge those who don't pay as free loaders. When I was in the bay area it was easy to find a local feed ... here in the sticks (200 miles from either LA or SF) is quite another problem. Many mid west sites share our delima. The backbone ONLY SEES A FRACTION OF THE TOLL CHARGES. They have little right to assume authority of the cost of the net ... neither do distant sites .... Net service should be an open above the table issue. Heck, I doubt most news administrators on the backbone have seen any of the phone bills during the last year or know to the even dollar what the totals are or what each link costs. Many more of us smaller guys who pay the bills KNOW what the backbone only guesses .... the net is expensive. Since it often comes out of our pockets, we are much more sensitive to the spiral of cost caused by the increased flamage and social groups. > > > 2) As a commercial service stargate based news traffic CANNOT be > > rebroadcast to ANY OTHER machine or site without paying the fee for > > that site as well... > > I would assume that Stargate would permit local rebroadcasting. If they > don't, a lot of people are going to be very unhappy. I'm not an expert on > the legalities of this sort of thing, but I would assume that Stargate can > waive fees for subsequent machines in the area if they want to. THINK -- DON'T ASSUME ANYTHING. If they don't restrict it they will cut into the user base substantially -- likely to the point Stargate will not reach critical mass. If they do restrict it, I doubt it will successfully replace usenet. In either case some form of uucp based usenet will likely remain in service. I know of a number of sites that could not justify Stargate service charges to their managment, but will stay on the net somehow. > "Multiple machines? Us? Heavens no; only one of our machines gets that > traffic." I don't see most such sites paying multiple site fees, either, > and the Stargate people would be silly to expect it. The Stargate people > are not dummies, guys, nor are they vicious capitalist swine intent on > making bundles of money at our expense. If Stargate costs a lot more than > Usenet, few people will bother. They *know* that. Expect it??? OR demand NOT??? THINK -- what are the business alternatives, WHAT CHOICES SHOULD WE LOBBY FOR DURING THE NEGOTIATIONS for starting Stargate???? If they continue to hide behind closed doors with popular support, then the community will get what they get .... I'd rather have a choice. The key is in your last statement ... Stargate WILL cost more than the current near free for most sites, and given any choice they will not likely join Stargate if the same data remains available over uucp based usenet. Justify $1,000 to your boss while telling him you can get the same data free. I agree ... "They *know* that" ... I ask what are they planning to do about it????? This and most of the other questions are so basic that they demand discussion prior to settling with a proposed vendor. How is the vendor going to act if everyone bitches at the last minute??? > Here we come to the heart of the matter. Usenet *won't* stay intact as a > cost free competitor, because it is *not* "cost free" and never has been. > Its costs are rising steadily, to the point where it clearly cannot survive > in its present form too much longer. Those sites who pay Long Distance > bills are subsidizing the freeloaders. THIS WILL NOT CONTINUE FOREVER! Ahhh .... but the net MUST stay intact to carry items to Stargate via uucp mail. Also one of the biggest benifits of the current uucp based usenet is that uucp mail service goes most places. If the current net dries up, what will happen to mail service??? Is Stargate without mail service still the same net??? I doubt it. Being able to reply via email is a significant part of usenet. In any case -- usenet will not die, it will change to cast off the expensive baggage. Stargate will promote listen only sites that are issolated from the rest of the net. > > A lot more can be done to improve the cost of the usenet long haul > > connections, which WILL LIKELY COST LESS THAN stargate. > > And do less for us, in the long run. Have you plotted the rise in traffic > against time? I recently posted five years of data to net.news. Try it. > Then figure out how much time each proposed cost-cutting measure buys us. > It's usually not a lot. I have followed the cost of usenet for about 5 years ... I KNOW about the change in traffic and Costing ... I have voiced my concerns about the cost of non-technical traffic over the last several years. > Don't forget compatibility with older modems; few sites have phone lines > that they can afford to *officially* dedicate to Usenet. Don't forget > processing time; vanilla uucp on 750-class machines can't consistently > run even a 4800-baud line at full speed. Don't forget that most of those > modems are very new and still have problems, notably in areas like flow > control between them and the host. Most of the fast async modems also support some mix of std 2400/1200/300 access. Stargate will not solve the above problem either, likely it will make it worse and the same solutions apply. Most of the new modems also handle flow control with the same type software fixes required as the Stargate buffer box. News itself is the problem, the data accesses per article are only a few percent of the disk traffic ... very inefficent. Notes is much better in some ways. A new dbms type system needs to be written that doesn't use one file per message and can directly batch/unbatch streams with a single fork/exec. > > > 2) Upgrade the uucp server to be full duplex --- IE carry traffic in > > both directions concurrently -- this will likely improve the > > connection costs about 30% for backbones and have little affect > > on leaf sites. > > > > 3) Implement a better I-have/I-want transmission scheme that is > > real-time... > > Are you volunteering to do it? Usenet has never had any shortage of people > with great ideas, but we do have a shortage of people implementing them. > I also suspect that your estimate of cost improvement is high. > > This amounts to redoing the transport mechanism completely, since uucp > doesn't support this. That is a lot of work; I sure don't have time to > tackle it. > I expect the that a good re-write of news to solve the filesystem problem may also have a local non-uucp queue manager and transport service. I have considered writing it for a long time, the market for such could justify the development costs. It is about a 1.5 man year job, more than my staff and I can afford to do public domain ... although notes is a damn good start. > > 4) Negotiate a reduced flatrate DDS nite service AS A GROUP with > > one of the long haul carriers... > > > 5) evaluate X.25 major city interconnections... > > > Again, are you volunteering to do it? Don't forget that we really do > need data-quality transmission, which is a lot scarcer than cruddy voice > circuits. Also don't forget that many sites can get their Usenet phone > bills past the bean-counters only because they are *not* explicitly > identified as such. > > This is already being done, by many people independently. It helps. > It doesn't constitute a long-term solution to the problems, though. > Don't be so stupid to start discounting suggestions if the suggestor isn't able to implement it by themselves ... hell stargate wouldn't have gotten off the ground if Lauren was the only person involved. Good ideals and goals are much cheaper than false starts. Its the bean counters you refer to that will stop Stargate .... you will need the phone service plus Stargate access fees plus rental fees plus cable fees plus installation charges plus????? > In case you didn't hear about it, Usenix solicited proposals of precisely > this kind recently. I believe they got, essentially, none. I and many others in usenet are not Usenix members. I don't remember the USENIX posting requesting alternative proposals ... I certainly would have responded. -- John Bass (DBA:DMS Design) DMS Design (System Design, Performance and Arch Consultants) {dual,fortune,polyslo,hpda}!dmsd!bass (805) 541-1575
joel@gould9.UUCP (07/15/86)
In article <945@vortex.UUCP>, lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes: > Many of the details of Stargate, including organizational, cost, > and some technical issues, are proceeding behind closed doors right now ... > Given the lack of details, it is only natural that some persons might > get false ideas or operate under false assumptions if they speculate > upon what we're trying to accomplish. I hope that means that John's point #2 is truly false. Every other for-profit information service has a clause that reads roughly: we'll sell you this info for your own personal use, but you cannot sell or give this to any other person or service. Since, as John correctly points out, anyone can join now and receive unrestricted access and redistribution from the net (and for free, if they can finagle the phone call issue) I would hope that this aspect would not be destroyed in an attempt to "save" USENET. I trust that the behind the scenes work will be described at a later date. I HOPE that those working on the project have the same goals as the net as a whole. -- Joel West (619) 457-9681 CACI, Inc. Federal, 3344 N. Torrey Pines Ct., La Jolla, CA 92037 {cbosgd, ihnp4, pyramid, sdcsvax, ucla-cs} !gould9!joel joel%gould9.uucp@NOSC.ARPA
jsdy@hadron.UUCP (Joseph S. D. Yao) (07/17/86)
Mild criticism of John Bass' article:
First off, it seems to me that a lot of the site administrators
of backbone sites had been talking about changes like those you
propose in the second part of his article. Have you talked to
any of them? (I don't remember seeing dmsd on any backbone list.)
Second, all those "simple deductions" about cost in the first
part of the article seem to me not so simple. They make a lot
of assumptions that seem totally unjustified. Besides the tech-
nical, one of the most basic assumptions is that all the people
involved in this are pure capitalists (value received for less
than or equal value given). I think most of us have a strong
streak of communism (willingness to share, unlike political
Marxist "Communist"s) or even just socialism (willingness to
share others' property, too [;-)]).
--
Joe Yao hadron!jsdy@seismo.{CSS.GOV,ARPA,UUCP}
jsdy@hadron.COM (not yet domainised)henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (07/22/86)
> What we ask is: Put the facts up NOW and prove us dead wrong if Stargate > REALLY is cheaper ...... OR let the community judge this creation with open > eyes and have the chance NOW to explore other alternatives to a Stargate > monopoly. What "monopoly"?!? I doubt that Lauren, or anyone else involved with Stargate, is going to call down the wrath of the heavens on you if you start exploring alternatives right now, all by yourself. I'm interested to see what you can come up with, in fact. Please start being creative rather than destructive. -- EDEC: Stupidly non-standard brain-damaged incompatible Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology proprietary protocol used. {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (07/22/86)
> Henry, being part of the backbone is a nice status deal... It's overrated. That and fifty cents will buy me a can of Sprite. :-( > ... I write the checks every month. > I forward the news to the local university free of charge as a service. > I KNOW what it costs, you don't have a monopoly on that or the right to > judge those who don't pay as free loaders... My apologies for misjudging your participation; your original article sure sounded like you thought the net was "free". I think if you read my article again, you'll find that the people I judge as freeloaders are the ones who not only don't pay, but don't want to pay and feel free to orate about how the net is a right, not a privilege. > The backbone ONLY SEES A FRACTION OF THE TOLL CHARGES. They have little > right to assume authority of the cost of the net ... Nobody ever said we did. If you dislike what the backbone does (e.g. the renaming of newsgroups, another decision reached by a sinister cabal with minimal public input... deliberately, or we'd still be discussing it in the year 2000), form your own backbone. There is nothing special about most of the backbone sites except good equipment and the willingness to grit their teeth extra-hard when the bills come in. Nobody will argue if you assume as much load as you see fit, and decide for yourself how much that is. Just grant us the same privilege, please. > Heck, I doubt most news administrators on the backbone have seen any > of the phone bills during the last year or know to the even dollar what > the totals are or what each link costs... I haven't asked all of them, but I believe you're badly mistaken. The costs are all too visible. No, we do not have magic ways of hiding them. > > I would assume that Stargate would permit local rebroadcasting... > > THINK -- DON'T ASSUME ANYTHING... Sorry, I know some of the people involved, and refuse to believe that they are stupid or venal. That assumption is on pretty solid grounds. > If they continue to hide behind closed doors with popular support, > then the community will get what they get .... I'd rather have a choice. You will have one, as will we all: the choice of whether we wish to get involved with Stargate or not. If Stargate flops, or doesn't successfully replace the existing Usenet, because it is poorly put together, I fail to see how that interferes with the pursuit of other approaches to the problem. Nobody is pointing a gun at your head and demanding you buy Stargate. > ...Stargate WILL cost more than the current > near free for most sites, and given any choice they will not likely join > Stargate if the same data remains available over uucp based usenet. The intent of Stargate is to offer better quality (i.e. more signal, less noise), not just more of the same. As Lauren has repeatedly pointed out, the transmission medium for Stargate has finite bandwidth that will have to be managed consciously, quite apart from the legal issues (and the human ones of *wanting* to provide better quality). > ... "They *know* that" ... I ask what are they planning to do > about it????? You seem to assume that the answer is "something vague and sinister that we won't like but will have to accept". Please justify this. > This and most of the other questions are so basic that > they demand discussion prior to settling with a proposed vendor... They will certainly have to be discussed before we settle with Stargate about any participation we undertake. I see no reason why they have to be discussed before that is a serious prospect, though. I know, you meant that they should be discussed before Stargate's plans get settled. What I ask is, why? Stargate isn't spending my money, or yours. > How is the vendor going to act if everyone bitches at the last minute??? Any vendor with an ounce of brains will be aware that he's taking a chance on this to some extent. > > ... Usenet *won't* stay intact as a cost free competitor... > > Ahhh .... but the net MUST stay intact to carry items to Stargate via uucp > mail. Also one of the biggest benifits of the current uucp based usenet is > that uucp mail service goes most places. If the current net dries up, > what will happen to mail service??? Uucpnet (mail) and Usenet (news) are not the same. One isn't even a subset of the other. Uucpnet will presumably stay intact, since there is no reason why it shouldn't and every reason why it should. > ... News itself is the problem, the data accesses per article > are only a few percent of the disk traffic ... very inefficent. Notes is > much better in some ways. A new dbms type system needs to be written that > doesn't use one file per message and can directly batch/unbatch streams > with a single fork/exec. The fork/exec problem is already being attacked by C news, which is almost ready for release. It doesn't change the form of the database, partly because its authors believe that the existing database format is perfectly adequate for any reasonable volume of traffic. The problem is that the volumes of traffic are rapidly becoming unreasonable. Even the popular technical groups are approaching the point where the investment needed to read them is not worthwhile. The authors of C news believe that the right way to attack that problem is at the source: the traffic volume. > > Again, are you volunteering to do it? ... > > Don't be so stupid to start discounting suggestions if the suggestor isn't > able to implement it by themselves ... hell stargate wouldn't have > gotten off the ground if Lauren was the only person involved. For a long time he *was* nearly the only person involved. Ideas are not enough; we need implementors too. Lauren not only had a good idea, he's worked hard to make it fly. I don't discount a suggestion just because the suggestor isn't able to implement it by themselves, but I'm afraid we *must* discount suggestions which don't have implementors at all. The Usenix call for proposals was most explicit about wanting to know "who" as well as "what". > Good ideals and goals are much cheaper than false starts. We cannot run ideas and goals on our machines, however. > > In case you didn't hear about it, Usenix solicited proposals of precisely > > this kind recently. I believe they got, essentially, none. > > I and many others in usenet are not Usenix members. I don't remember the > USENIX posting requesting alternative proposals ... I certainly would have > responded. It was <2550@hcradm.UUCP>, posted on April 7th to net.news and net.usenix. There was a bit of further discussion in net.usenix. Perhaps you have a feed problem? Out of curiosity, why aren't you a Usenix member? -- EDEC: Stupidly non-standard brain-damaged incompatible Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology proprietary protocol used. {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
jj@alice.UUCP (07/28/86)
I've noticed that this weekend has been very bad for repeated messages. Several sets of six identical messages appeared at alice, and I presume elsewhere. In addition, all of the traffic from Wednesday or so until Saturday Re-appeared on sunday in duplicate. According to this not so large sample, we could cut traffic by about 20-30% MERELY by eliminating echoing machines, and/or taking backbone action on machines that don't stay fixed. -- TEDDY BEARS UNITE! SAVE YOUR FUR TODAY! "Gravity causes the stars to shine, tropisms make the ..." (ihnp4;allegra;research)!alice!jj