[ba.news.config] Imminent death of UUCP Zone predicted

kls@ditka.UUCP (Karl Swartz) (07/02/90)

In article <3008.268b1e9a@mccall.com> tp@mccall.com writes:
>In article <KARL.90Jun28154651@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu>, karl_kleinpaste@cis.ohio-state.edu writes:

>> | I, personifying the  nameservers  and mailers  of  Ohio State Computer |
>> | Science, am willing to be nameserver and  MX  for ___ANYBODY___ who is |
>> | willing to make the UUCP calls to osu-cis to pick up his/her own mail. |

>Very laudable, and appreciated by many, I'm sure. What do you say to those
>who can get free uucp connections, but would have to pay to reach a
>generous internet site such as yourself?

Not to mention a decrease in service.  Right now the majority of my
Internet mail hops onto uucp at apple.com, goes to zygot, and then
to ditka.  Each call is "on demand" so it generally only takes a few
minutes for mail to get from the Internet to ditka.

But every time I've looked for a suitable MX I've run up against a
blank wall.  I live in the foothills in the East Valley region of
San Jose, in the San Jose 3 calling area.  The only Internet sites
I've found for which this is a local call are apple.com and several
random HP sites.  Mail to the appropriate people disappears into a
black hole.

So that leaves me with a choice of polling a site outside my local
calling area, going through an intermediate uucp site, or finding
some wealthy Internet site which doesn't mind paying for calls to
me every once in a while.

Polling is unappealing mainly because of the great reduction in
service it would imply.  Yes, I know more people would be able to
reach me, so I would be trading service rather than giving it away,
but the people who want to reach me find a way anyway.

Going through intermediate sites seems to be taboo, though like
Terry I don't quite see the logic when Internet sites are quite
happy to use the same intermediate sites for .UUCP traffic.

And wealthy Internet sites don't seem to advertise their services
very widely.  (I'd welcome hearing from any volunteers.)

>So even having a site in a large city doesn't guarantee that
>you can find an MX forwarder at other than long distance rates.

Yup.  You'd think one could find something here in Silicon Valley,
and maybe I will, but it sure isn't obvious.

>> IT'S NOT THAT TOUGH AND I AM TIRED OF PEOPLE BITCHING ABOUT IT BEING
>> TOUGH.  THERE ARE THOSE OF US OUT HERE WHO WILL HELP.  *ASK*!

No, it's not, and in fact since I work at an Internet site I can
probably take care of the nameserver and everything else rather
easily.  But we don't have uucp there so I still need to find a
place for the MX to point to that won't dramatically reduce my
level of servce or cost me an arm and a leg over what I pay now.

-- 
Karl Swartz			 |UUCP	uunet!apple!zygot!ditka!kls
1-408/223-1308			 |INet	zygot!ditka!kls@apple.com
"I never let my schooling get in |BIX	kswartz
the way of my education."(Twain) |Snail	1738 Deer Creek Ct., San Jose CA 95148