dlr@daver.bungi.com (Dave Rand) (12/14/90)
MX forwarding is great. With it, I can have an address that is reachable
almost anywhere. Anyone on the Internet can dump my address on it, and
some root server or another will point the mail towards uunet or decwrl.
But what happens if the mail I am sending or receiving is commercial in
nature?
According to the NSFNET Acceptable Use Policy:
1. All use must be consistent with the purposes of NSFNET.
2. The intent of the use policy is to make clear certain cases which are
consistant with the purposes of NSFNET, not to exhaustively enumerate all
such possible uses.
3. The NSF NSFNET Project Office may at any time make determinations that
particular uses are or are not consistent with the purposes of NSFNET.
Such determinations will be reported to the appropriate NSFNET policy
advisory group(s) and to the user community.
4. If a use is consistent with the purposes of NSFNET, then activities in
direct support of that use will be considered consistent with the purposes
of NSFNET. For example, administrative communications for the support
infrastructure needed for research and instruction are acceptable.
5. Use in support of research or instruction at not-for-profit institutions
of research or instruction in the United States is acceptable.
6. Use for a project which is part of or supports a research or instruction
activity for a not-for-profit institution of research or instruction
in the United States is acceptable, even if any or all parties to the
use are located or emplyed elsewhere. For example, communications directly
between industrial affiliates engaged in support of a project for such
an instiution is acceptable.
7. Use for commercial activities by for-profit institutions is generally
not acceptable unless it can be justified under (4) above.
8. Use for reseach or instruction at for-profit institutions may or may not
be consistent with the purposes of NSFNET, and will be reviewed by the
NSF Project Office on a case-by-case basis.
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Based on this, it seems clear that communications (including email)
between two "companies" is not permitted in general, if that traffic
must cross the NSFNET for delivery.
Is this the case? Will MX records go away?
The reason I ask this is that I have a pending application to BARRNET,
our local Internet. bungi.com is a personal endevour, and is not directly
supported by any company. I would like to attach to BARRNET, and provide
MX service directly for many of my current UUCP connections. BARRNET is
resisting this application, on several grounds, but the big issue at the
moment seems to be my desire to provide MX service for the various sites
that I connect to. I would like to provide a convincing argument that
MX service is a desirable thing, and should be permitted on the Internet
_even if it is commercial traffic_.
Comments?
--
Dave Rand
{pyramid|mips|bct|vsi1}!daver!dlr Internet: dlr@daver.bungi.com