peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (06/15/88)
I realise that there might well be a lot more people who can use binaries than sources, however we (yes, an editorial we) believe that the purpose of usenet is to support: first, UNIX programmers and users; second, programmers of other species of operating system; and third, everyone else. Over in news.admin, Chuq is asking that all comp.sources be deleted except for comp.sources.unix. That is, he's advocating the reduction of Usenet to the first group only. I think that throwing the third group to the wolves first might save our skins. Again. Usenet is not a BBS. Usenet is a resource for programmers. Let's not lose sight of that. On the plus side, comp.*.amiga was a lot further down in the top-40 this time around... -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These may be the official opinions of Hackercorp.
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (06/15/88)
In article <2124@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >I realise that there might well be a lot more people who can use binaries >than sources, however we (yes, an editorial we) believe that the purpose >of usenet is to support: first, UNIX programmers and users; second, programmers >of other species of operating system; and third, everyone else. ``We'' Kimasabbee ? >Over in news.admin, Chuq is asking that all comp.sources be deleted except for >comp.sources.unix. That is, he's advocating the reduction of Usenet to the >first group only. I think that throwing the third group to the wolves first >might save our skins. Chuq is looney tunes. He gets like this every time his wife cuts him off or a big machine drops off the net. In this case it's really overreaction because the issue that raised this - ihnp4 not passing third party email is a non-issue. Ihnp4 hasnt been a news backbone site for ages now, and handles an extremely miniscule portion of email anyway. Because it is decentralized, you can't kill USENET on purpose or by accident. If the feds came in tomorrow and tried to shut USENET off, they wouldnt be able to. True anarchy. Translation: No Chuq, the sky isn't falling. That was a webber bird. >Again. Usenet is not a BBS. Usenet is a resource for programmers. Let's >not lose sight of that. Gosh Peter, thanks for telling us what USENET is. You are however, completely blowing it out your bunghole. USNET is a bunch of computers exchanging mail and news. Anything else, is your imagination. Translation: please explain, Peter, how the following groups are a "resource for programmers": general alt.individualism alt.aquaria alt.sex alt.drugs alt.rock-n-roll talk.bizarre alt.flame la.news ca.general ca.news.group ca.politics ca.test ca.wanted comp.protocols.tcp-ip.eniac comp.risks comp.society comp.sources.games comp.sys.apple :-) comp.sys.ibm.pc :-) :-) comp.text comp.text.desktop misc.consumers misc.consumers.house misc.forsale misc.handicap misc.headlines misc.invest misc.kids misc.legal misc.misc misc.taxes misc.test misc.wanted news.admin news.announce.important news.config news.groups news.lists news.misc news.newsites news.software.b news.software.notes news.sysadmin rec.arts.books rec.arts.comics rec.arts.drwho rec.arts.movies rec.arts.movies.reviews rec.arts.poems rec.arts.sf-lovers rec.arts.startrek rec.arts.tv rec.arts.tv.soaps rec.arts.wobegon rec.audio rec.autos rec.autos.tech rec.aviation rec.bicycles rec.birds (I could go on, but you get the point) >On the plus side, comp.*.amiga was a lot further down in the top-40 this >time around... BFD. Ever see a #1 group actually get killed ? Soc.singles or .women will go first. But blood will be shed first. >-- Peter da Silva -- "Shrimp Ahoy" richard@gryphon.CTS.COM {backbone}!gryphon!richard
cjp@antique.UUCP (Charles Poirier) (06/17/88)
In article <2124@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP writes: >I realise that there might well be a lot more people who can use binaries >than sources, however we (yes, an editorial we) believe that the purpose >of usenet is to support: first, UNIX programmers and users; second, programmers >of other species of operating system; and third, everyone else. From a stylistic point of view, this use of "we" rankles. Peter is (are?) not the editor or publisher of Usenet. Who does he imply he is speaking for here? Using "we" strikes me as a cheap stab at multiplying one's authority. >Over in news.admin, Chuq is asking that all comp.sources be deleted except for >comp.sources.unix. That is, he's advocating the reduction of Usenet to the >first group only. I think that throwing the third group to the wolves first >might save our skins. This coming from a man who brought his own wolf? ;-) I say calm down; that howling noise may just be one hysterical person. >Again. Usenet is not a BBS. Usenet is a resource for programmers. Let's >not lose sight of that. That may be the justification used at Peter's host for those Usenet phone bills, but I expect that there are many other parts of Usenet that have a broader view. Another very minor rankle here. The person goes from the royal "we believe" to the chummy "Let's not". "We" means Peter, but "us" means everyone else? I feel like I'm being manipulated. I guess what really gets to me is the elitist attitude that programmers are supreme. I am a programmer by the way, but I respect the rights of "mere" users to have Usenet as a resource, too. Thank you, here's the soapbox back. -- Charles Poirier (decvax,ucbvax,mcnc,attmail)!vax135!cjp "Docking complete... Docking complete... Docking complete..."
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (06/17/88)
You know, I think this is the first public flame I've gotten that both contained an obscenity and wasn't obviously a 12 year old. In article ... richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: > In article <2124@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: > >I realise that there might well be a lot more people who can use binaries > >than sources, however we (yes, an editorial we) believe that the purpose > >of usenet is to support: first, UNIX programmers and users; second, > >programmers of other species of operating system; and third, everyone else. > ``We'' Kimasabbee ? (That's "Kemosabe") Yes, as in "we Usenet system admins at large companies". Ferranti isn't a backbone yet, but there are people in management that like the idea. To the sites that carry most of Usenet it's a resource for their programmers: primarily UNIX, and only secondarily toy machines like PCs. > Chuq is looney tunes. He gets like this every time his wife cuts him > off or a big machine drops off the net. Hey, you flamed two people at once! > Because it is decentralized, you can't kill USENET on purpose or > by accident. If the feds came in tomorrow and tried to shut USENET > off, they wouldnt be able to. I think if they got injunctions against uunet, the public access systems, and the Internet there wouldn't be much of Usenet left. In fact, I think Fidonet would be bigger than the remnants. > >Again. Usenet is not a BBS. Usenet is a resource for programmers. Let's > >not lose sight of that. > Gosh Peter, thanks for telling us what USENET is. You are however, > completely blowing it out your bunghole. There. I promised an obscenity. USENET is whatever the people paying the bills say it is. Most of the bills are being paid by Big Nasty Corporations, and this is what they think they're paying for: comp.unix.*,comp.lang.*,comp.sys.selected.groups,comp.sources.unix, comp.sources.misc... They, by and large, don't know about (or if they do they don't carry): > general alt.individualism alt.aquaria alt.sex alt.drugs alt.rock-n-roll ... and so on. > >On the plus side, comp.*.amiga was a lot further down in the top-40 this > >time around... > BFD. Ever see a #1 group actually get killed ? Soc.singles or .women > will go first. But blood will be shed first. (Is BFD obscene? I know BSD is.) I really don't think that anyone's going to put their life on the line for a newsgroup. -- -- Peter da Silva `-_-' ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter -- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter -- Disclaimer: These may be the official opinions of Hackercorp.
vkr@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath K. Rao) (06/18/88)
In article <2132@sugar.UUCP>, peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: > [deleted stuff] > USENET is whatever the people paying the bills > say it is. Most of the bills are being paid by Big Nasty Corporations I wonder what the proportion of academic nodes is in USENET. If all usenet is carried by commercial operations what you say is right. Perhaps we need a parallel set up: One that will continue even if all the commercial users pull out. After all Universities need to keep the faculties and the slaves (aka grad students) happy. Some research labs too will have to stay in for the same reasons
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (06/18/88)
In article <2132@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: > >Hey, you flamed two people at once! So what. Everyone on talk.bizarre is a bleeding idiot. There, now I flamed 15,000 people at once. So what. > >> Because it is decentralized, you can't kill USENET on purpose or >> by accident. If the feds came in tomorrow and tried to shut USENET >> off, they wouldnt be able to. > >I think if they got injunctions against uunet, the public access systems, and >the Internet there wouldn't be much of Usenet left. In fact, I think Fidonet >would be bigger than the remnants. Peter, what on earth are you talking about ? ``Injunctions against UUNET and pubic access sites.'' You wanna explain that. >> >Again. Usenet is not a BBS. Usenet is a resource for programmers. Let's >> >not lose sight of that. > >> Gosh Peter, thanks for telling us what USENET is. You are however, >> completely blowing it out your bunghole. > >There. I promised an obscenity. USENET is whatever the people paying the bills >say it is. Most of the bills are being paid by Big Nasty Corporations, and this >is what they think they're paying for: > >comp.unix.*,comp.lang.*,comp.sys.selected.groups,comp.sources.unix, >comp.sources.misc... I assume you can back up that ludicrous claim. >They, by and large, don't know about (or if they do they don't carry): > >> general alt.individualism alt.aquaria alt.sex alt.drugs alt.rock-n-roll >... and so on. Granted you trimmed the list of 80 non computer groups to the few that are easiest to pick on. The point remains though, Peter, that of the roughly 400 newsgroups, only about 100 are computer related. They enjoy wide distribution. Although it is net.chic to claim that USENET is for UNIX weenies, it is not true. The massive number of non UNIX, non-computer newsgroups should indicate that to you. > >I really don't think that anyone's going to put their life on the line for a >newsgroup. Uh yeah, right. When you get back from mars, post again. -- "Shrimp Ahoy" richard@gryphon.CTS.COM {backbone}!gryphon!richard
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (06/18/88)
In article ... vkr@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath K. Rao) writes: > In article <2132@sugar.UUCP>, peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: > > [deleted stuff] > > USENET is whatever the people paying the bills > > say it is. Most of the bills are being paid by Big Nasty Corporations > I wonder what the proportion of academic nodes is in USENET. Universities are also Big Nasty Corporations, even the ones financed by the Top Carnivore of Organised Crime (the government). They also have to meet their bills and to do that they have to deliver a product: graduated students. I'm sure that everything I've said about the top levels of real corporations is largely true about universities... they just don't know what's going on down in the trenches. > If all usenet > is carried by commercial operations what you say is right. Perhaps we need > a parallel set up: One that will continue even if all the commercial users > pull out. After all Universities need to keep the faculties and the slaves > (aka grad students) happy. Some research labs too will have to stay in > for the same reasons The commercial users aren't likely to pull out completely, but they may well stop carrying anything but comp.unix.* and comp.sources.unix. -- -- `-_-' Peter (have you hugged your wolf today?) da Silva. -- U Mail to ...!uunet!sugar!peter, flames to /dev/null. -- "A foolish consistancy is the hobgoblin of little minds".
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (06/18/88)
In article <2287@antique.UUCP>, cjp@antique.UUCP (Charles Poirier) writes: > In article <2124@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP writes: > >however we (yes, an editorial we) believe that the purpose > >of usenet is to support [programmers]. > From a stylistic point of view, this use of "we" rankles. Peter is > (are?) not the editor or publisher of Usenet. Who does he imply he is > speaking for here? Using "we" strikes me as a cheap stab at multiplying > one's authority. You're right, it is. It seems to work for everyone else, so why shouldn't I get to have some fun? :-> > >Over in news.admin, Chuq is asking that all comp.sources be deleted except > >for comp.sources.unix... > >I think that throwing the third group to the wolves first > >might save our skins. > This coming from a man who brought his own wolf? ;-) I say calm down; > that howling noise may just be one hysterical person. Could be... On the other hand I see heavy fragmentation up ahead. > >Again. Usenet is not a BBS. Usenet is a resource for programmers. Let's > >not lose sight of that. > That may be the justification used at Peter's host for those Usenet > phone bills, but I expect that there are many other parts of Usenet > that have a broader view. Actually, Ferranti gets (roughly) comp.*,!comp.sys,!comp.sources, comp.sources.unix. We'd like to have a broader view, but it's kind of hard to pay your bills with it. > Another very minor rankle here. The person goes from the royal "we > believe" to the chummy "Let's not". "We" means Peter, but "us" means > everyone else? I feel like I'm being manipulated. You are. Isn't it fun? Other people get such good results from being manipulative, I thought I'd give it a try. > I guess what really gets to me is the elitist attitude that programmers > are supreme. I am a programmer by the way, but I respect the rights of > "mere" users to have Usenet as a resource, too. Thank you, here's the > soapbox back. Actually, programmer's aren't supreme. But users get all those lovely BBSes and FIDOnet and all. Usenet is the one place I can expect to get feedback from my peers. Sources groups have long been a sore spot. By the way: % cat /etc/motd You're one of the few, the proud, the programmers. % -- -- `-_-' Peter (have you hugged your wolf today?) da Silva. -- U Mail to ...!uunet!sugar!peter, flames to /dev/null. -- "A foolish consistancy is the hobgoblin of little minds".
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (06/18/88)
In article ... richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: > In article <2132@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: > >Hey, you flamed two people at once! > So what. Everyone on talk.bizarre is a bleeding idiot. There, now > I flamed 15,000 people at once. So what. Well, I'm more inteseted in the flaming aspect of the whole thing. How do you get so good at it? So, he said: > >> Because it is decentralized, you can't kill USENET on purpose or > >> by accident. If the feds came in tomorrow and tried to shut USENET > >> off, they wouldnt be able to. And I said: > >I think if they got injunctions against uunet, the public access systems, and > >the Internet there wouldn't be much of Usenet left. In fact, I think Fidonet > >would be bigger than the remnants. And he said: > Peter, what on earth are you talking about ? ``Injunctions against > UUNET and pubic access sites.'' You wanna explain that. ^^^^^ :-> Meese has already shut down a few pubic access sites, I believe. You said, basically, the feds couldn't shut down Usenet. I think that they could, by targeting the named entities. > >> [nasty words deleted] > >There. I promised an obscenity. USENET is whatever the people paying the > >bills say it is. Most of the bills are being paid by Big Nasty Corporations, > >and this is what they think they're paying for: > >comp.unix.*,comp.lang.*,comp.sys.selected.groups,comp.sources.unix, > >comp.sources.misc... > I assume you can back up that ludicrous claim. OK, what do you think BNCs think they're paying for? And who do you think is paying for Usenet? > >They, by and large, don't know about (or if they do they don't carry): > >> general alt.individualism alt.aquaria alt.sex alt.drugs alt.rock-n-roll > >... and so on. > Granted you trimmed the list of 80 non computer groups to the few that > are easiest to pick on. Actually, I just took the first line of your list. I didn't particularly select any groups to pick on. > The point remains though, Peter, that of the > roughly 400 newsgroups, only about 100 are computer related. And it you took those 100 out, the net would lose a lot of its support. If you took the other 300 groups away, many places wouldn't even notice. > They enjoy > wide distribution. Although it is net.chic to claim that USENET is for > UNIX weenies, it is not true. The massive number of non UNIX, non-computer > newsgroups should indicate that to you. The readership surveys indicate that a lot of readers prefer non-technical groups. By and large, however, they're not the ones paying the bills. > >I really don't think that anyone's going to put their life on the line for a > >newsgroup. > Uh yeah, right. When you get back from mars, post again. What is that supposed to mean? That this is a life or death matter? Or that you thought my comment was so obvious that it doesn't need stating? If the former, I'll drop by next time I go to mars. I guess I should be more lavish with ":->". -- -- `-_-' Peter (have you hugged your wolf today?) da Silva. -- U Mail to ...!uunet!sugar!peter, flames to /dev/null. -- "A foolish consistancy is the hobgoblin of little minds".
cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) (06/19/88)
Well, for my part, I rather appreciate having the working binaries available. I don't have a C compiler, and I'm not interested in getting one, not to mention that if .binaries goes away I'd probably have to get TWO (or are Manx and Lattice really compatible now?), not to mention paying for and keeping up with the bugfixes and upgrades. Not to mention the time it would take to compile things before I could hack with them. And further, unless you guys are a LOT more compulsive than any programmer I've ever met, the stuff about trojan horses is all just horsehockeys: do you REALLY pore over the C sources of every program that rolls in before you'll compile and run it to make sure that there's no obfuscated C hiding something nasty? That's _real_ dedication, and, I suspect, pretty unusual even for the more ardent "I won't run a binary I didn't compile" crowd. On the other hand... I can see that there are surely a fair number of Amiga hackers who have no use for the binaries, and sites that can legitimately object to paying for passing all the uuencoded bits through. I wonder if, for the binary-likers, just having the binaries *available* would be adequate. Actually, maybe doing the sources that way would be good enough, too. That is, Instead of posting ANYTHING, you just post a suitable announcement of the availability of whatever-it-is, and folks can go retrieve it on their own. What I was thinking was if, perhaps, someone (peter? Pat?) could run the archive-server software (I assume it must be reasonably portable and standard, since it is running at a couple of places around the internet), and then if you saw a particular suite of sources or binaries that interested you, you could just email tothe server and get what you wanted back by email. __ / ) Bernie Cosell /--< _ __ __ o _ BBN Labs, Cambridge, MA 02238 /___/_(<_/ (_/) )_(_(<_ cosell@bbn.com
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (06/19/88)
In article <2141@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >corporations is largely true about universities... they just don't know what's >going on down in the trenches. Peter, you're insane. Can you back up this wild assertion ? >The commercial users aren't likely to pull out completely, but they may well >stop carrying anything but comp.unix.* and comp.sources.unix. Peter, you're insane. Can you back up this wild assertion ? First it was "my drive is out of alignment, Commodore should redesign the file system to tolerate that" Then it was "I don't like parallet ports, NOBODY should use them" And now it's "We only like UNIX groups here in this little pocket of hell we call Texas, everything else should fly into a black hole" ObJok: How many Peter da Silva's does it take to screw in a light bulb ? Two. One to hold the bulb while the NET revolves around him, and the other to post every other message to comp.sys.amiga. -- "Shrimp Ahoy" richard@gryphon.CTS.COM {backbone}!gryphon!richard
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (06/19/88)
In article <2145@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >Well, I'm more inteseted in the flaming aspect of the whole thing. How do >you get so good at it? Practice. >So, he said: >> >> Because it is decentralized, you can't kill USENET on purpose or >> >> by accident. If the feds came in tomorrow and tried to shut USENET >> >> off, they wouldnt be able to. > >And I said: >> >I think if they got injunctions against uunet, the public access systems, and >> >the Internet there wouldn't be much of Usenet left. In fact, I think Fidonet >> >would be bigger than the remnants. > >And he said: >> Peter, what on earth are you talking about ? ``Injunctions against >> UUNET and pubic access sites.'' You wanna explain that. > ^^^^^ :-> > Meese has already shut down a few pubic access sites, I believe. > >You said, basically, the feds couldn't shut down Usenet. I think that they >could, by targeting the named entities. No, I dont think this would work. As long as there are modems and open phone circuits there will bw a net. Look at how little of a ripple in the fabric of the net there was when the last few backbone sites drop off. There is far more bandwidth available than you would suspect, Peter. You could replace almost any backbone site with a 386, a big harddisk and a few telebits. >OK, what do you think BNCs think they're paying for? And who do you think is >paying for Usenet? Uh, whats a BNC ? Isn't that a connector ? > >And it you took those 100 out, the net would lose a lot of its support. If >you took the other 300 groups away, many places wouldn't even notice. Yeah right. Look at the fuss when Brian Reid offered to rmgroup alt.sex. That group has about the lowest propogation of any of the net, is certainly the least technical and is even an alt group fer crissakes. The hue and cry echo'd from here to Tibet. Go ahead Peter, offer to rmgroup soc.singles or soc.women. I dare you. >The readership surveys indicate that a lot of readers prefer non-technical >groups. By and large, however, they're not the ones paying the bills. You're insane Peter. I asume you can back up this wild claim of yours. > >> >I really don't think that anyone's going to put their life on the line for a >> >newsgroup. > >> Uh yeah, right. When you get back from mars, post again. > >What is that supposed to mean? It means who said anything about dying for a newsgroup ? -- "Shrimp Ahoy" richard@gryphon.CTS.COM {backbone}!gryphon!richard
vkr@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath K. Rao) (06/20/88)
In article <2141@sugar.UUCP>, peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: > [...] I'm sure that everything I've said about the top levels of real > corporations is largely true about universities... they just don't know > what's going on down in the trenches. [...] You missed my point. I think of free USENET access as a perk. I personally stick to comp.*.amiga*, sci.math*, soc.culture.indian, and will complain bitterly if I lose any one of them. I think of these as a compensation for thing I am not getting at OSU/Newark. > The commercial users aren't likely to pull out completely, but they may well > stop carrying anything but comp.unix.* and comp.sources.unix. I think that this will be bad for employee morale. It is not a simple matter of saving phone bills. There will be negative reactions and one has to weigh the costs as well as the immediate savings.
peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (06/20/88)
Gee, can I start making ad-hominem attacks too? In article ... richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: > Peter, you're insane. Can you back up this wild assertion ? > Peter, you're insane. Can you back up this wild assertion ? > ObJok: How many Peter da Silva's does it take to screw in a light bulb ? > Two. One to hold the bulb while the NET revolves around him, and the > other to post every other message to comp.sys.amiga. I can do that too: Q: How long does it take Richard Sexton to screw in a lightbulb? A: He'll get around to it when he's finished making personal attacks on Usenet. > First it was "my drive is out of alignment, Commodore should redesign > the file system to tolerate that" My drive is not out of alignment. I don't have any of the symptoms of a drive that's out of alignment (particularly bad performance from one drive, disks that can only be read on the same drive that write them, disks that other people can't read, etc...). I do have a 2 year old child and a moderately normal family life that precludes my running my computer in a clean room, but that's the environment a $1000 computer should be designed to deal with. > Then it was "I don't like parallet ports, NOBODY should use them" No, it was "by the way, aren't parallel ports for printers a really weird idea? Gee, wouldn't it be nice if IBM hadn't screwed everyone by standardising on parallel printers? Then I could have two generally useful ports on my machine." Followed by ultimitely futile attempts to defend myself against flames that (1) I was trying to dictate my preferences to everyone else (absurd in the face of the fact that the machine has already been shipping for a couple of years), and (2) that parallel ports are, in fact, more useful than serial ports. I am unconvinced of point two, but point one is a pure ad-hominem attack. Three guesses as to which of these points Richard Sexton decided to push. > And now it's "We only like UNIX groups here in this little pocket of > hell we call Texas, everything else should fly into a black hole" No, it was more along the lines of "due to the fact that certain people over in news.admin seem to be planning to eviscerate the micro groups, it might be a good idea to trim some fat ourselves before it gets trimmed for us", followed by "I think that the binaries groups are fat". Richard: "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." -- Old folk saying. -- -- `-_-' Peter (have you hugged your wolf today?) da Silva. -- U Mail to ...!uunet!sugar!peter, flames to /dev/null. -- "A foolish consistancy is the hobgoblin of little minds".
thomson@utah-cs.UUCP (Rich Thomson) (06/20/88)
In article <2141@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: :In article ... vkr@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath K. Rao) writes: :> I wonder what the proportion of academic nodes is in USENET. : :Universities are also Big Nasty Corporations, even the ones financed by :the Top Carnivore of Organised Crime (the government). They also have to :meet their bills and to do that they have to deliver a product: graduated :students. Actually, the product of a university is research, not graduated students. Graduated students just provide a convenient slave force for getting the work done :-). The business of Universities is research, not education. -- Rich Thomson, Oasis Technologies, 3190 MEB, U of U, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112 (801) 355-5146 thomson@cs.utah.edu {bellcore,ut-sally}!utah-cs!thomson Alocohol: the drug of availability
cjp@antique.UUCP (Charles Poirier) (06/21/88)
In article <2144@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP writes: >> >Again. Usenet is not a BBS. Usenet is a resource for programmers. Let's >> >not lose sight of that. > >> That may be the justification used at Peter's host for those Usenet >> phone bills, but I expect that there are many other parts of Usenet >> that have a broader view. [stuff about can't afford to pay phone bills] Just wait till you hear the wolf-howl that goes up when every Usenetter receives an announcement that their favorite non-technical newsgroup is scheduled for termination. Most companies feel they can't afford unhappy employees -- this is what I mean by a "broader view". I bet there would be a lot of companies, both big-and-nasty and small-but-nice, that would find themselves retracting that announcement toot sweet. I'm not too worried. Watch out for those small-but-nasty ones though. -- Charles Poirier (decvax,ucbvax,mcnc,attmail)!vax135!cjp "Docking complete... Docking complete... Docking complete..."
faustus@ic.Berkeley.EDU (Wayne A. Christopher) (06/22/88)
I don't know about these "Big Nasty Corporations". Their employees enjoy reading non-technical groups, right? I'll bet lots of them also enjoy having nice offices, company memberships at health clubs, etc, and many companies provide these things. Why is netnews any different? Would you work for Evil Slave-driver Software, Inc, where they chain you to your terminal and you can't even play hangman while your compiles run? Be real. Are there any estimates of how much it actually costs an average netnews site to carry all the groups, with maybe a few medium-distance down-stream links? Factor in the disk costs, CPU time for rn... Maybe a few 100 $'s a day? For how many employees? Is it enough for a big site to care? I doubt it. Wayne
faustus@ic.Berkeley.EDU (Wayne A. Christopher) (06/22/88)
In article <25945@bbn.COM>, cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) writes: > I wonder if, for the binary-likers, just having the binaries > *available* would be adequate.... if you saw a particular suite of > sources or binaries that interested you, you could just email to > the server and get what you wanted back by email. Well, think about it. Isn't the whole point of netnews to prevent fifty people at the same site from getting the same thing via e-mail? A better scheme would be to post a phone # for the server and let the user pay his own phone bills. Wayne