tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) (01/24/85)
There are a variety of goals which USENET and Stargate attempt to satisfy. For USENET, these seem to be: (1) Providing a means of distributing technical expertise. (2) Fostering discussion of issues of interest to a large and diverse net population. Stargate attempts to allow these goals to be satisfied, while satisfying the additional goals: (3) Providing a cheaper way for sites to participate. (4) Providing a more useful network by reducing the amount of trash individual participants must "wade through". All these are worthwhile goals. I think we can all agree on them. Stargate is being deployed in an incompletely controlled fashion. There is no way to guarantee that any particular description of USENET after deployment of Stargate will be accurate. Therefore, we can not be sure that deployment of Stargate will satisfy even the goals (1) and (2). Nor can we be sure it will not. If Stargate satisfies its goals, it will be a worthwhile system. If not, then we may be able to return to the old (current) system, or we may not. Stargate's failure may only become apparent after the existing phone-based distribution system is disrupted beyond repair. The costs of going back to the current system may cause sites to drop out altogether. Phone bills may go up significantly. And so on. Remember Murphy's Law! The point is that we have to be ready for the possible contingencies of deployment. We have to have plans in the case of various things coming to pass. And I see none being developed. Instead, we have true believers claiming that this description, or that description, is definitely the single one that will be accurate. "I can't see a USENET moderator acting in an obnoxious fashion." "The moderators will all be fascists and abuses of moderation will crush free speech!" "All the backbone sites will keep the current phone line distribution system." "The backbone sites will drop out and phone-line distribution will only be used locally." "Will not!" "Will so!" What we need are plans with alternatives. What we do not need is more specious and ranting "proofs" of what USENET will look like after Stargate, or people telling us "Don't worry, everything will turn out all right." It may not turn out all right, and we need to be ready if that happens. Can we all agree on at least this? -=- Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University Computation Center ARPA: Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K uucp: seismo!cmu-cs-k!tim CompuServe: 74176,1360 audio: shout "Hey, Tim!" "Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains." Liber AL, II:9.
mjs@eagle.UUCP (M.J.Shannon) (01/26/85)
Tim Maroney writes of the `deployment' of Stargate in the referenced article. Unless I've missed some very important messages in this newsgroup, my understanding is that the entire Stargate project is an *experiment*. It is not intended to replace the existing net *until and unless* the experiment proves to be successful. I think we should concern ourselves with giving the experiment a fair shot before we condemn it outright, or claim that it shold replace USENET as we now know it. Yes, it has some very ambitious goals, and to my mind, that only emphasizes the importance of making sure that those who claim it can't work before the fact, as well as those who claim it is the `ultimate' solution to the net's current problems before the fact should temper their arguments with the knowledge that it is merely an experiment. I am truly amazed at the quantity of baseless flaming (both pro and con) this discussion has prompted, and I hope that those responsible for that flaming will soon come to realize that Stargate is *not* going to take their `right to post' away; nor is it going to meet any of its goals -- UNLESS we all give the experiment its right to life. -- Marty Shannon UUCP: ihnp4!eagle!mjs Phone: +1 201 522 6063
bass@dmsd.UUCP (John Bass) (01/30/85)
Tim Maroney brings to light a very necessary point of view ... by what do we judge the "experiment" and what is really necessary to determine success/failure/neither outcomes. His forsight in looking for alternatives and caution is right on. Mr Shannon is in error to mention Tims name then completely ignore Tims arguments simply as a forumn to complain about negative or alternate points of view and to further surpress meaningful discussion. I am disappointed in the average maturity of the net that has jumped on the pro-stargate project in a magic frenzy and loudly condemned the non-believers with non-facts and tirates. I think that the Stargate is a very interesting techinical challenge, and a wonderful chance for Lauren and others to work with some hightech toys. I give my full support to Lauren to further this project quickly to its logical end. As with Tim and several others who questions and suggestions have been drowned out in the mindless criticism of a few religous zelouts ... I TOO HAVE SOME SERIOUS QUESTIONS THAT HAVE NOT BEEN ADDRESSED! So don't flame stargate religion back at me or the net .... discuss the issues ... how to we make the most of stargate. 1) It seems that one strong argument for stargate is that it will reduce traffic on the land based network since EVERYONE will start using the stargate hop and it's possibly moderated forum. A) judging by the current traffic in the arpa digests and the mod news groups two questions are raised ... one is that the information content in digests like fa-dcom (or whatever the correct spelling is) is not significantly greater or better .... it looks just like normal nets without some of the flaming OR the involvement levels of readers .... this is both good and bad. B) Secondly the net mod groups do not seem to be successful while the orignal forums are very active ... there seems to be a STRONG interest in non-moderated forums. C) It seems that from these two observations that possibly the stargate project could be placed into service with some level of support and still have the land/phone based network grow with increased use and importance ... thus some sites would have not only the land based costs BUT ALSO the stargate subscription costs. D) from A, B and C a serious question arises ... do we 1) breakup the land based network to force stargate to succeed?? 2) if the infomation content of the land based network stays at a high enough level will there be support for sites to pay BOTH the phone charges and STARGATE FEES? 3) if the land network is broken up by backbone sites switching to STARGATE only ... how will stargate postings be carried from the average remote site to the uplink. 4) if the land based network is broken up and stargate service is discontinued what will be the strategy for recovery or backtracking to an other service? 2) Stargate is clearly an experiment at this point, with the possible formation of a commercial, for profit, information service at the end of the experiment. Little discussion (or clarification) has addressed the topic of what is the experiment to prove or disprove, on what the project considers a successful outcome, or on separating out the "experiments goals" from the "commercial end product goals". This may have been discussed but the religous zelots blur the two items into one. It seems some -- including myself -- wonder if the frenzy has produced only ONE ACCEPTABLE GOAL of placing stargate into commercial operation as it's measure of success. Frank's concerns I believe had merit and should have been discussed ... but his inmature solutions seem to have temporily closed the doors on reasonable discussion ... lets start over and get these and other questions answered NOW! 3) Lastly I wonder if a comercial stargate is of practical value outside an extremely interesting technical exersize and a chance to say "we really did it". For a moment lets consider a simular approach but not quite as magic as using a "stargate". A much cheaper solution with GLOBAL use to help europe and places south and east would be to use a HAM shortwave RTTY link. A collection of 8-24 stations could use a one hour timeslot to broadcast a NEW traffic to their sight in the last 24hour period, with several timeslots reserved for retransmission of new data 1, 3, and 7 days back to help sites who have been down. These "backbone sites" would transmit new articles comming in via ground and retransmit new articles in the air .... thus giving an 8times redundancy in a 24hr slot and providing for a 1 week recapture window. While the number of transmitting stations would be limited to a dozen or so ... 5-6 in the US would cut down on much of the long distance traffic with strategic placement ... at the cost of transistor SW radios (used for 2-3 bucks) and cost of an RTTY or 300 baud modem (under $50 bucks) nearly EVERY SITE could afford a downlink. With a distribution of the remaining transmitting links in europe and other foreign sites the whole net could go WORLD WIDE VERY QUICK> To improve costs in smaller geographic or more remote areas other frequency assignments could be made to create subnets with one of the backbone transmitting sites also monitoring those frequencies as well .. a local gateway if you wish. For some sites with packet radio gear the meduim could be used for a subnet as well. Now who is ham that could help setup this alternate experiment?? NO FLAMES PLEASE .... just founded facts and arguments OR better proposals to make stargate, hamgate, or someother alternate help USENET grow .... John Bass
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (02/03/85)
Just a few quick points: 1) It is my personal feeling that part of the problem with the moderated groups that we have now is that everything depends on volunteer labor. I don't believe that a TOTALLY volunteer system can work indefinitely, since we assume that people who would make good moderators also have other things to do with their time. However, just because under some future scenario people might be reimbursed for the time they spend doesn't imply some horrific money-grabbing organization. Even non-profit organizations usually pay bills and salaries for their people! 2) At this point, the only organization that has interest in making money on the project is the satellite carrier. As they have clearly shown, however, they are not interested in making quick money in this area. Their willingness to make free time available and to negotiate special low rates for the future show clearly that they feel the project and the network to be worthwhile in and of themselves. It isn't clear to me how this makes them any more commercial than the long distance companies who currently absorb all the money relating to Usenet phone calls. It seems quite clear that under any operational system the amount of money the sat people would be making would be MASSIVELY less than the amount going to phone calls now. 3) Judging from John Bass's comments, I wonder if he's a licensed amateur radio operator. I am. The rules for content on ham radio are MUCH more restrictive than anything we might see as moderation guidelines on Stargate. These rules (involving obscenity, non-use for business purposes, third-party message traffic relaying, and numerous other areas) are decidedly more strict than even the more common "broadcast" rules. The rules even explicitly state that people operating third party relays are directly responsible for the content of all traffic passing through them, and go on to say that (officially at any rate) all traffic is to be monitored at all times for compliance, and cut off immediately if there is non-compliance. Under ham rules, this could officially mean cutoffs for the simple use of "dirty" words, regardless of context. A large proportion of current Usenet traffic would also probably be deemed to be "commercial" in nature, and be forbidden even on that level. In other words, to keep things legal, ham radio would probably represent the MOST restrictive scenario in terms of content and the necessity for extremely conservative screening. Since you can't get a "commercial" ham license, much responsibility would have to be shouldered by individual hams, who could be personally liable for large fines and other legal sanctions. The ham packet radio people are only now starting to realize the full extent of liabilities that they must deal with under the law. Anyone trying to send much Usenet type data would attract instantaneous attention and close scrutiny. It just doesn't look very practical. --Lauren-- P.S. As for getting materials to Stargate, network mail is only one possibility. Other scenaries include direct dialups (possibly with 800 numbers) to reduce any input latency to a minimum. --LW--
ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist) (02/05/85)
> A much cheaper solution with GLOBAL use > to help europe and places south and east would be to use a HAM shortwave > RTTY link. The last time this was discussed, the problem was finding unused frequencies. I understand that restrictions on ham radio frequencies make it impractical to use these frequencies for transmitting USENET. I have stayed out of the Stargate discussion until now because it sounded as though any more criticism of the idea might cause Lauren to abandon the project, and I feel that it has a certain amount of value, as I will explain. Hou3c will probably not attach up to stargate simply because hou3c does not have a cable connection nearby. I suspect many sites on the net are in a similar situation. Thus the scenario of Stargate entirely replacing USENET appears improbable. What may very well happen is that a significant number of sites will leave the net to join Stargate. This will result in a bunch of problems as the net will have to be restructured to bypass the sites that leave, but I expect that this can be worked out. One way to put Stargate in perspective is to consider the plight of the person who doesn't have USENET access provided courtesy of some large corporation. In order to put a home computer on the net, almost certainly have to limit the number of newsgroups received and have only one USENET parter. In short, a home computer will have to be a leaf of the net. And if lots of people want to be- come USENET leaves, we will have to start turning them away. With the Stargate system, on the other hand, all nodes are leaves, and thus machines that can't afford to forward news pose no problems. USENET is nice, but it cannot form the basis of WorldNet because it the philosophy of "every site gets every article" does not permit indefinite growth. Stargate should have many of the advantages of USENET while supporting a larger user community. The alternative to Stargate over the long term appears to be mailing lists trans- ferred over a commercial carrier. My enthusiasm for Stargate was significantly dampenned when I learned that it would not support unmoderated groups. I hope that I never have to rely on the facilities of Stargate. But on the other hand, being limited to moderated groups is better than being limited to *no* groups. There is enough inertia behind the net at this point that predictions of the collapse of the unmoderated groups seem unfounded (although Stargate will cause adjustment problems). The unquestioned benefit of Stargate is not for those of us who are already on USENET, but for those sites that which cannot afford to hook up to the existing USENET but which could afford a connection to Stargate. Kenneth Almquist
bsa@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) (02/14/85)
[These are the voyages of the Stargate Enterprise...] Okay, let's discuss StarGate possibilities. Certainly it's saner than Frank Adrian's blatherings... and Lauren lacks the time to handle this stuff. The StarGate Experiment is, basically, to see whether netnews CAN BE TRANSMITTED via satellite and received. If it's not possible to get netnews into and back out of the vertical interval, or if the soft/hard technology required on the receiving end is too complex or expensive or just plain doesn't work (I still haven't figured out how rnews would work as a box instead of a program), StarGate will have failed. If, however, news can be transmitted over the StarGate and received on machines equipped with decoders, and the news received is not garbaged, lost in transmission, et cetera, then the experiment will have succeeded. This is non-trivial, and is much wider in scope (if rnews can be put in a box, you may be able to plug something the size of a Model 100 into your cable box and read netnews -- score one for the global information network). IF this works, the next step is to turn the initial apparatus into a commercially feasible decoder box, which (preferably) could be sold for under $500 or rented for some low per-monthly charge. This will probably take a while. In about 3-4 years, we may finally see real Usenet sites using StarGate. And not heavily at first, even with the push to lower phone bills; if the argument for keeping the net exists *at all*, it will preclude switching to an almost-empty early Stargate. Probably major sites will use both for a time, until it gets going... then possibly not drop the net, except for the stuff it gets off of StarGate. Now, as for alternatives: Hamnet sounds like a good idea; someone should try it out. Can you imagine a tiny inews program for a Commodore 64 with an RTTY interface? :-} How about *un-encoded* satellite Usenet? A combination of the non-technical groups on here would make a good entertainment channel on many cable networks, with articles rebroadcast as often as necessary to allow a large cross-section of viewers to read them, something like cable news services like UPI. Certainly the cable companies would never go broke showing articles from net.soaps! (Which should not be taken to indicate *my* opinion of said newsgroup; I never subscribed to it in the first place.) Articles could be handled the way current moderated Usenet is handled, but with the above-mentioned repostings. This does, however, leave the postnews side open... maybe *mailed* postings to the local cable company, to be forwarded (eventually) to the newsgroup moderator. Certainly it'd give people more of a chance to think before posting, a necessity if you made Usenet available to all (else we'd be just as bad off as we are now). Any other ideas to be *** looked into *** ? I am specifically NOT suggesting that these replace the net; I am suggesting alternative ideas for cheap access. We could probably find people to start Ham-net right now, as a test; I might even look into a ham license. Any takers? Brandon (bsa@ncoast.UUCP) (P.S. Isn't this *much* nicer than flames?) -- Brandon Allbery, decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!bsa, "ncoast!bsa"@case.csnet (etc.) 6504 Chestnut Road, Independence, Ohio 44131 +1 216 524 1416 (or what have you) -=> Does the Doctor make house calls? <=-
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (02/15/85)
Just a reminder before you go rushing out for ham licenses. The rules regarding ham traffic (particularly third party which is what we're talking about here) are very strict (*much* more strict than what a moderated Stargate would propose). This would probably make usage of the ham bands for such traffic pretty much impractical. --Lauren--
rpw3@redwood.UUCP (Rob Warnock) (02/16/85)
+--------------- | ... | Now, as for alternatives: | Hamnet sounds like a good idea; someone should try it out. Can you imagine | a tiny inews program for a Commodore 64 with an RTTY interface? :-} +--------------- I think the hams have leap-frogged you... [ Technical info below gleaned from net.ham-radio - any mistakes are mine ] Modern hams are using TAPR boards (Tucson Amateur Packet Radio), with far more advanced techniques than RTTY, which was typically 75 baud. TAPR runs at 1200 baud (with experimental units already working at 9600), uses the AX.25 packet protocol (modified X.25). There are a lot of digital repeaters ("digipeaters") out there already, and you can send packets from the SF Bay Area to San Diego with only 6 hops (soon to be three). From what I read, the digipeaters tend to use Xerox 820s, not Commodore 64s. As one writer noted, not in many years have the hams so clearly fulfilled their charter to "advance the state of the art", but they're doing it now! Amateur packet radio via low-orbit satellite is routine (one of the OSCARs has a digipeater of some sort), and they recently exchanged packets from the U.S. to Europe via low-orbit satellite. I am seriously considering getting my ham license to get in on this stuff. They are MOVIN'!!! There are already several regions across the U.S. that have coordinated packet nets going. I expect a nation-wide amateur net "real soon now". (Lest I sound too excited, remember I worked for XTEN for a year, and had gotten all fired up about microwave packet radio before they folded.) Anybody who is interested further can subscribe to "net.ham-radio". Rob Warnock Systems Architecture Consultant UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax!dual}!fortune!redwood!rpw3 DDD: (415)572-2607 USPS: 510 Trinidad Lane, Foster City, CA 94404
rpw3@redwood.UUCP (Rob Warnock) (02/16/85)
+--------------- | Just a reminder before you go rushing out for ham licenses. The rules | regarding ham traffic (particularly third party which is what we're | talking about here) are very strict (*much* more strict than what a | moderated Stargate would propose). This would probably make usage | of the ham bands for such traffic pretty much impractical. | --Lauren-- +--------------- Righto! But... One can gain a LOT of practical experience on the ham bands, experience which may prove useful when it comes time to ask the FCC to license COMMERCIAL packet radio repeaters! Just as "stargate" is carrying "dummy" articles right now, so could ham radio carry "test" messages, or private traffic between two hams/sysadms. Remember, there's still a lot of R & D to do -- the TAPR stuff is just a first step (though a big one). Carrying 3rd party traffic IS permissable, if it's not "for pay" and you are COMPLETELY responsible for the contents (though as Lauren points out, the conditions are stiff). I still think it's neat. Imagine being able to read netnews while you're up in the mountains somewhere (or being able to send mail if you need rescue). Cellular telephone is here "real soon now". Can "cellular packet net" be far behind? Hook "stargate" to TAPR and you've got a public-run XTEN! (Almost...) Rob Warnock Systems Architecture Consultant UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax!dual}!fortune!redwood!rpw3 DDD: (415)572-2607 USPS: 510 Trinidad Lane, Foster City, CA 94404
tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) (02/17/85)
Since I don't appear to have made my point clear at length, let me try to make it as concisely as possible: The satellite netnews project has great potential and should be continued by all means. It also poses a small but real danger to the existing network. Rather than flaming back and forth about whether the satellite netnews project will or won't destroy the net, or posting proofs that the danger is small (we all know that, but "small" ain't "none"), we should be considering how we would recognize that this was happening and what we could do about it once it was recognized. I hope this is something on which we can all agree. Except Frank Adrian, of course.... -=- Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University Computation Center ARPA: Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K uucp: seismo!cmu-cs-k!tim CompuServe: 74176,1360 audio: shout "Hey, Tim!" "Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains." Liber AL, II:9.
msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader) (02/19/85)
Rob Warnock in net.news.stargate (go there for the context, please): > I still think it's neat. Imagine being able to read netnews while you're up > in the mountains somewhere (or being able to send mail if you need rescue). Mmm... I can just see the messages. :-) Path: lsuc!utcs!utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!hoxna!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!decvax!bellcore!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!ihnp4!uiuiuiu%angelina.UUCP:john@digriz.UUCP :-) Newsgroups: net.general :-) Subject: Help! :-) :-) I am freezing to death because I don't :-) know how to turn my portable heater on. :-) Has anyone ever had this problem before? :-) I don't know the first thing about :-) heaters or this net so please excuse me :-) if I this has been discussed before. :-) Please post your reply to this net, I :-) don't know my mail path or how to read :-) mail. :-) :-) John :-) exit :-) help :-) DONE :-) w article :-) q :-) q This has been a satire by Mark Brader.
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (02/19/85)
I've had a ham license for years, and I've been watching the packet radio developments quite closely. In the recent past, I've been informally solicited regarding my opinions of ham liability for messages passing through their own digital repeaters (people are finally starting to worry about that) and how to avoid jamming of digital radio links (remember that any bozo with a transmitter can cause lots of trouble and be very difficult to track down). I fully support the amateur radio services. I simply suspect that the rules that govern ham operations (by which I've had to abide for years in my own ham operations) would not permit a great deal of netnews-type traffic to flow. I also have some doubts about the desire of the ham community to have piles of garbage dumped on them in any case, but that's another issue entirely. --Lauren--
bass@dmsd.UUCP (John Bass) (02/20/85)
Lauren is right ... I am not a ham. But I still think the idea has a LOT of
merit given some collective thought on the issue. My concept was to use SOME
available frequency in an RTTY/RFMODEM hookup to provide broadcast service.
From my wandering in and out of several RTTY HAM's offices their traffic
didn't seem to be much different from what we propose ... in practice they
DO use repeaters unattended and un-monitored with some fairly uncivial traffic
at times. Maybe some moderated (for offensive material only) high traffic
groups would work well in this environment (net.sources, net.unix*, etc)
for a test ... the amount of offensive material is minimal in these groups.
Packet Radio freqency assigments could also be used, but the equipment is
more expensive and less available. There was a local group here about 2 years
ago at ComputerFaire demo'ing a lowcost PacketRadio link for hobby use ...
but I don't remember who/what/where.
Given the size of the group (about 200,000+ readers and doubling annually)
we could probably make a good argument for aquiring a commercial short/long
wave frequency assigment which would greatly remove much of the hassles on
content. Lobbying for simular service to Packet Radio frequency assignment
could be successful given simular support as the startgate experiment has
recieved.
It may be practical to use one freqency assignment for backbone service, and
another highend/low power band for local/regional service.
I was hoping that since Lauren is "much more into this stuff" that he could
provide some constructive input on how to either just get it started/done or
where to bend the FCC's ear for a more suitable frequency assignment. Since
he seems either busy or not interested ... is there someone else with a
strong communications background to provide a sounding board for such ideas
and help get such an experiment setup?
There has to be a cheaper less formal way than using a comercial
STARGATE approach ... I personally think that a lowcost grassroots type
"" ham "" type system would be more successful in the long run ... and matches
the needs of the global net a little better ... US cable tv doesn't go every
where yet.
John Bass
--
John Bass
DMS Design (System Performance and Arch Consultants)
{dual,fortune,idi,hpda}!dmsd!bass (408) 996-0557lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (02/22/85)
I'm sure John Bass will be happy to know that I've discussed Stargate and similar concepts with various amateur radio experts in both the packet radio and voice areas, and oddly enough the ones I've talked to seem to feel that Stargate has so much potential exactly because it doesn't fall under the same content and monitoring restrictions as the amateur service. The fact that many hams tend to ignore some of these regulations doesn't make the regulations disappear--at regular intervals you hear of repeater operators being shut down by the FCC for various rule violations. The situation would be much worse if it appeared obvious that various companies were soliciting and distributing technical information/data via such channels on a large scale. And other than the ham frequencies, which are under the amateur radio rules, there just aren't very many other choices available. Spectrum space is very tight and competition for that space is very high, especially in the local distribution arena from the microwave companies. Anyway, I just wanted to set John's mind at ease. I've had an amateur radio license for many years, and I have a variety of the community's "leaders" already fully "in the loop" regarding this project. They are among Stargate's strongest supporters. --Lauren--
ron@brl-tgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (02/22/85)
> I've had a ham license for years, and I've been watching the packet > radio developments quite closely. In the recent past, I've been > informally solicited regarding my opinions of ham liability > for messages passing through their own digital repeaters (people > are finally starting to worry about that). Yes, any repeater control station can tell you about how restrictive they got over autopatches (to the uninformed, this is where someone using a voice repeater, keys in a code that gets a phone line connected to the repeater). The rule is that autopatches can only be used when their is a control station on duty and listening. Prior to that we just logged all the autopatches (using a surplus logging recorder) to comply with the other third party rules requiring logging of the third parties who use the equipment. We left it up to the ham placing the call to regulate the emissions of his third party. Well, the analogy of this to a packet bboard is that a control station must screen all third party messages, not another HAM using or posting to the board, but a control station. (Aside: control stations are authorized people in charge who can excercise control of the station, like turning it off, either by being at the transmitter, at some remote control point, or using either phone or radio remote control (radio remote control must be on another frequency than the repeater and on the 440 band or higher).
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (02/23/85)
> The satellite netnews project ... > ... poses a small but real danger to the existing network. > Rather than flaming back and forth about whether the satellite netnews > project will or won't destroy the net, or posting proofs that the danger is > small (we all know that, but "small" ain't "none"), we should be considering > how we would recognize that this was happening and what we could do about it > once it was recognized. Whether Stargate/whatever will destroy the existing network is irrelevant; the existing network will destroy itself quite soon. The traffic volume is growing steadily, and with it the phone bills. Batching, compression, and faster modems will postpone the problem but cannot solve it. Sooner or later, the phone bills for the backbone sites will become unsupportable and the whole thing will go down in flames. Speaking as the sys admin of a backbone site, I expect the crash within a couple of years. Note that this will happen *regardless* of whether an alternate method of news transmission becomes practical, unless said alternate approach reduces the volume of phone news to nearly zero. I think this most unlikely, and have the same opinion about the possibility of radical change to bring traffic volume under firm control. Usenet is doomed. Given that the existing network *will* collapse, the question of whether an alternate form of transmission will hasten its collapse is largely a non-issue. The collapse is coming. If we want to have an alternative in place, we must act now. If doing so precipitates the crash, it's still the right thing to do. We must solve the problem, not just post- pone it slightly. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
root@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) (03/03/85)
> Article <164@redwood.UUCP>, from rpw3@redwood.UUCP (Rob Warnock) +---------------- | +--------------- | | ... | | Now, as for alternatives: | | Hamnet sounds like a good idea; someone should try it out. Can you imagine | | a tiny inews program for a Commodore 64 with an RTTY interface? :-} | +--------------- | | I think the hams have leap-frogged you... | | Modern hams are using TAPR boards (Tucson Amateur Packet Radio), with far more | advanced techniques than RTTY, which was typically 75 baud. TAPR runs at 1200 | baud (with experimental units already working at 9600), uses the AX.25 packet | protocol (modified X.25). There are a lot of digital repeaters ("digipeaters") | out there already, and you can send packets from the SF Bay Area to San Diego | with only 6 hops (soon to be three). From what I read, the digipeaters tend | to use Xerox 820s, not Commodore 64s. +--------------- Uh huh. And show me a TAPR board for a C-64. I'm talking about netnews for all (but they *can't* post! :-); if I had meant restriction to Xerox 820's, I would never have dragged the Commodore 64 into the discussion. Popular avail- ability of "netnews" could well be a source of support (and maybe revenue? Ads for contributions between the messages, a` la NPR?) --bsa -- Brandon Allbery, decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!bsa, ncoast!bsa@case.csnet (etc.) 6504 Chestnut Road Independence, Ohio 44131 +1 216 524 1416 -- CIS 74106,1032 -=> Does the Doctor make house calls? <=-
rpw3@redwood.UUCP (Rob Warnock) (03/07/85)
+-+-+--<598@ncoast.UUCP>: | | | Hamnet sounds like a good idea; someone should try it out. Can you imagine | | | a tiny inews program for a Commodore 64 with an RTTY interface? :-} | | +--<164@redwood.UUCP>: | | Modern hams are using TAPR boards (Tucson Amateur Packet Radio), with far | | more advanced techniques than RTTY, which was typically 75 baud. TAPR runs | | at 1200 baud (with experimental units already working at 9600),... | +----<622@ncoast.UUCP>: | Uh huh. And show me a TAPR board for a C-64. I'm talking about netnews for | all (but they *can't* post! :-); if I had meant restriction to Xerox 820's, I | would never have dragged the Commodore 64 into the discussion... | Brandon Allbery, decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!bsa, ncoast!bsa@case.csnet (etc.) +--------------- Sorry, I misunderstood your point. I was talking about RTTY vs. AX.25 (there are other digipeater sources besides TAPR). One can connect a TAPR board to a C-64, I think, if a C-64 can run at 1200 baud. The TAPR-computer link is just RS-232, as I understand. But I see now you're talking about the news software itself on very small machines ("inews", etc.). As far as running the netnews software, the disk space problem is likely to be the killer (do you have multi-megabytes of disk on your C-64?). I would suggest making a shared "neighborhood" system have all the disk on it, and using the radio links for terminal service to READ the news on the server, NOT for news transfer per se. (The radio is just a "dial-up" modem, in this case.) The neighborhood system might be run by voluntary contributions from its subscribers, the way public T.V. is funded. (Note that pay-for-play would necessitate using other radio channels than the ham bands. I don't know what FCC allocations would be suitable for commercial packet nets, but someone should look into it.) Additionally, the "nsc!dist-news" mailing list ("dist-news" or "lan-news"?) have been having discussions on how to structure reader/server software of this type in a local network environment (whether to cache articles in the reader, etc.). In that context, the radio link can be treated as an LAN. Unfortunately for your question, they are all assuming the "reader" nodes are fairly large workstation systems. The "stargate" experiment ALSO requires significant storage at receiving nodes, since articles are not requested but simply "fly by". (Maybe the "neighborhood" system above could be a "stargate" receiver.) Perhaps we can separate the discussion into segments on "transmission" (or "distribution"), "storage", and "processing" (or reading). Rob Warnock Systems Architecture Consultant UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax!dual}!fortune!redwood!rpw3 DDD: (415)572-2607 USPS: 510 Trinidad Lane, Foster City, CA 94404
bsa@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) (03/12/85)
Actually, Rob, I meant little more than a program to select by newsgroup what is going by "on the fly", WITHOUT storing it (unless requested) except an article at a time, erased each time a new article comes in. If they want real inews, they can find a Unix system. --bsa -- Brandon Allbery, decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!bsa, ncoast!bsa@case.csnet (etc.) 6504 Chestnut Road Independence, Ohio 44131 +1 216 524 1416 -- CIS 74106,1032 -=> Does the Doctor make house calls? <=-