ksh@cbosgd.UUCP (Karen Summers-Horton) (05/02/84)
This is the proposal for the UUCP project that was approved by the Usenix Board at the meeting in early April. It uses the -me macros. Comments, suggestions and questions are very welcome. Karen Summers-Horton ihnp4!cbosgd!ksh . \" The ND *must* come before the TL. .SA 1 .ND 3/25/84 .TL \fBProposal for a UUCP/Usenet Registry Host\fP .AF "" .AU "Mark R. Horton" .AF "" .AU "Karen Summers-Horton" .AF "" .AU "Berry Kercheval" .MT 4 A service is proposed to keep up-to-date UUCP and Usenet maps available to the UNIX community, and to make UUCP and Usenet software available in the public domain. This service will involve access to a UNIX machine, an expense budget, and a part time position for map maintenance. The availability of this service will enable domain based electronic mail and also have several other benefits. .P With the help of several volunteers, we will create, maintain, and distribute a high quality UUCP map, using data contributed by the UUCP community. This map will be similar to the current Usenet (news) map created and maintained by Karen, but with a format more suited to the UUCP network. (UUCP sites tend to have dozens or even hundreds of UUCP connections, with different costs attached to each connection, while Usenet sites tend to have only a few news connections.) The data will initially be kept in the same format as Steve Bellovin's pathalias program accepts. .P The UUCP network changes constantly, and a constant effort to keep this map up-to-date will be needed for the information to be useful. .P Karen has been maintaining and distributing the Usenet (news) map for over a year. This effort has been relatively small, compared to the UUCP map, because there are fewer sites on Usenet, and because the connection factor is smaller for Usenet. It has taken about five hours per week to keep this map current. This activity has been done as a volunteer, using the cbosgd machine at Bell Labs. .P Mark will put a copy of the latest Berkeley B News code on the new machine, and recruit several volunteers to help with future maintenance on that machine. This will enable the software to remain in the public domain, since no Bell Labs time, information, or resources will be used for it. This is a small time commitment, since the software currently exists and works, but needs periodic maintenance to fix bugs, and enhancement to deal with the changing nature of Usenet. This work will be done on a volunteer basis. .P In addition, several pieces of public domain software to use UUCP map information to route mail according to the ARPA standards have been posted to Usenet, but are not part of any complete distribution. Several additional routing programs must be written and assembled into a complete package. The resulting package would be put into the public domain and posted to Usenet. .P We need access to a UNIX machine on which we can do this work. Since we are geographically distributed across the country, we need either telephone expenses to be covered to dial up the machine, or else access to the machine via a toll-free telephone number or Telenet. .P A part time position, will be needed to compensate Karen for the time spent on the map. We estimate 20 hours/week. .P Since USENIX represents an excellent opportunity to make announcements and gather data, funding for Karen to attend each USENIX meeting would be needed. Since Mark already attends these meetings, Karen's expenses would be lessened because she can share a hotel room with Mark. .P There will be a need for a small budget for office supplies and expenses: stamps, envelopes, files, printer paper and ribbons, duplication, phone calls, and possibly a filing cabinet for records. This is because initially, much of the correspondence will be via paper mail. Also, some correspondence with new sites on paper will be necessary. In addition, phone calls will be needed to gather and verify information in the cases when electronic mail does not get a response. .P The benefits from this service would be many. The problems described above would be mitigated, if not completely solved. .P The B News software will not fall into a state of disrepair. Measures necessary to keep the net from smothering itself with traffic will be possible.
jeff@oddjob.UChicago.UUCP (Jeff Bishop) (05/03/84)
<> Do you suppose that when enough connections are made, the UUCP network will spontaneously develop intelligence? Jeff Bishop || University of Chicago ...ihnp4!oddjob!jeff || Astrology & Astrophysics Center
ado@elsie.UUCP (05/03/84)
> Do you suppose that when enough connections are made, the > UUCP network will spontaneously develop intelligence? > Jeff Bishop || University of Chicago > ...ihnp4!oddjob!jeff || Astrology & Astrophysics Center If you limit yourself to the universe of posted articles, the UUCP network could already pass the Turing test.
jdb@qubix.UUCP (Jeff Bulf) (05/04/84)
From: jeff@oddjob.UChicago.UUCP (Jeff Bishop) > Do you suppose that when enough connections are made, the > UUCP network will spontaneously develop intelligence? Talk about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts! :-) -- Dr Memory ...{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!qubix!jdb
richard@sequent.UUCP (05/05/84)
>> Do you suppose that when enough connections are made, the UUCP >> network will spontaneously develop intelligence? >> >> Jeff Bishop || University of Chicago >> ...ihnp4!oddjob!jeff || Astrology & Astrophysics Center Perhaps it already has. Maybe that's what keeps eating all those first lines, and regurgitating the weeks-old news. ___________________________________________________________________________ The preceding should not to be construed as the statement or opinion of the employers or associates of the author. It might not even be the author's. I try to make a point of protecting the innocent, but none of them can be found... ...!sequent!richard
minow@decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow) (05/12/84)
An earlier discussion of this topic may be found in the story "Inflexible Logic" by Russell Maloney (The New Yorker, 1940) reprinted in The World of Mathematics, Vol. 4, pp. 2262-2267. Martin Minow decvax!minow