jpp@specialix.co.uk (John Pettitt) (07/28/89)
Here is me .02 ECU's worth on the `big bad commercial EUnet'.
Firstly EUnet is not USENET, it is a distinct network that happens
to gateway news and mail so any and all talk of USENET spirit,
ethics etc is not applicable. (a good comparison would be
to view USENET as MSDOS I.E. no protection low reliability
and EUnet as UNIX with protection and a reliable service :-)
Secondly the backbone sites distribute the cost of feeding news
amongst all sites. This has been flamed and many people (mostly
colonial types :-) have said that some system where sites charge
the site below them should be employed. This won't work for
two reasons.
1) as has been said already, in most cases, the non commercial
sites can't charge fees.
2) Commercial sites are in business for other reasons, we feed
five other sites with news, if I have to get my accounts people
to invoice for news then it becomes a commercial activity of the
company and our normal considerations regarding profit margins
will apply. Most commercial sites that feed news don't tell
managment that they do it.
If anything EUnet is not commercial enough, I would like to see
a commercial IP network in europe that we could use to replace
all this uucp stuff.
We (slxsys) are good net.citizens we (at our own expence) bring
biz.all, pubnet.all and soc.feminism into the uk because these
groups are not on the mcvax<->uunet link. We don't charge for
this and I `lose' the cost in our comms budget.
If you are going to follow up to this PLEASE take the time to
read what I have said and note the :-) where needed.
John Pettitt
Technical Director (c.f VP Engineering in american terms)
Specialix International
N.B. My opinion is company policy
--
John Pettitt, Specialix, Giggs Hill Rd, Thames Ditton, Surrey, U.K., KT7 0TR
{backbone}!ukc!slxsys!jpp jpp%slxinc@uunet.uu.net jpp@specialix.co.uk
Tel: +44-1-941-2564 Fax: +44-1-941-4098 Telex: 918110 SPECIX G
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck) (07/31/89)
In article <1989Jul28.075305.28009@specialix.co.uk> jpp@specialix.co.uk (John Pettitt) writes: >Firstly EUnet is not USENET, it is a distinct network that happens >to gateway news and mail so any and all talk of USENET spirit, >ethics etc is not applicable. You're wrong here, John, because you misunderstand the meaning of the word "USENET". USENET consists of all the sites that get the news.* groups. That's the definition. Since you're posting here, you're on USENET. Congratulations, and welcome! I take it that what you really mean is that "EUnet is not the USA-and-Canadian UUCP-net". In the US, USENET is transported both over UUCP links and over the Internet (via NNTP protocols), and over other networks as well. The Internet is centrally controlled, and the UUCP-net is wild and wooly. The Internet provides many services; UUCP provides only news and mail. Most of the bouncing of mail actually seems to happen at gateways between networks. > (a good comparison would be >to view USENET as MSDOS I.E. no protection low reliability >and EUnet as UNIX with protection and a reliable service :-) MSDOS? Now you're talking about FidoNet! On the UUCP net, messages bounce for technical reasons. On EUnet, messages bounce for political reasons. :-) -- -- Joe Buck jbuck@epimass.epi.com, uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck