kiessig (12/28/82)
Attention Netnews Site Administrators: I am interested in establishing a USENET Central Organization, and am enclosing a description of a set of services. I am interested in four things at this point: (1) your input on these ideas, (2) whether you feel that you could convince your site to join for the proposed fee (and if not, why and would a lower fee be more acceptable), (3) whether or not your site would accept assistance in reducing their USENET-related phone bill (and the approximate amount thereof, if available), and (4) which services listed below you are least/most interested in. *** PLEASE RESPOND DIRECTLY TO ME BY MAIL ONLY: *** megatest!fortune!kiessig or harpo!fortune!kiessig or dsd!fortune!kiessig I will provide a summary of replies to the network. If there is sufficient interest, I will follow this up with more details (how much we can do depends largely on how many sites are willing to contribute). I will wait seven days for all replies to trickle in (until Jan. 3, 1983) before generating a summary of replies. The basic goals of this organization are: 1. Help reduce the load on the network, thereby reducing costs. 2. Attempt to offset costs incurred by major network switching nodes, and eventually replace them with dedicated machines. 3. Increase network efficiency, making the network more usable by more people. 4. Make the information on the network more available to more people, including those who don't yet have machines. Services to be provided by the USENET Central Organization: 1. Membership rates Memberships would be available for $5/person/month. For a site with 10 netnews users, this is $50/month. 2. Help offset costs of the network Ways to reduce data transmission costs would be researched. Subscriber sites would be provided with funds to help offset costs of major traffic routes (decvax <=> ucbvax, etc.), until local switching nodes are installed. 3. Getting questions answered A new newsgroup or mailing list (or both) will be used for asking all of the "standard" questions (similar to the net.experts previously proposed). A group of people at NetCentral would answer all questions submitted. This would reduce overall load on the net by having an outlet for newcomers who want to know where "foobar" came from. If NetCentral can't answer a question, it will be resubmitted to the appropriate list. When users see a question submitted by NetCentral, they'll know they only have to answer once, and that at least a little research went into it before it was posted to the net. 4. New software Members will receive regular updates for software. This includes updates to news, notes and uucp. Requests for changes to software would be discussed over a newsgroup like net.news.sw. 5. Digestification service For newsgroups which decide that they would rather interact in digest form, NetCentral will provide a digestification service. 6. Mailing lists NetCentral will maintain several mailing lists, established on an as-needed basis on request of subscribers. 7. Network gateways As need demands, gateways to other networks will be provided. Telenet, Tymenet, ARPAnet are all possibilities. Exact connections will depend on total funding and the needs of the Membership. 8. Provide copies of netnews articles by US mail. Subscriptions will be offered for groups of netnews articles. Mailings will take place once or twice a week, depending on volume. Rates will be just enough to handle copying and mailing costs, and will be separate from normal subscription rates. A small newsletter describing current NetCentral activities will also be available by US mail. 9. Provide a query/reply service by US mail Subscribers will be able to reply to articles they see by US mail. They will also be able to generate queries. Charges would be in the area of $1 per query, to handle labor involved. Computer generated input (on floppies, say) would be accepted. Queries will be "screened" before being submitted to the net (i.e. answered first, if possible). 10. Provide a central news switching center Something like a 68000-based UNIX machine with lots of disk, some modems, autodialers, etc. will be made available to members. The "ihave"/"sendme" feature would of course be available, possibly to be used in conjunction with a US mail subscription. As more sites subscribe, these local swiching nodes should largely replace current big network hubs like decvax, ucbvax and harpo. 11. Map / Site Directory Maintenance Unless the current maintainers of site directories and network maps wish to continue their work, NetCentral will take over maintenance of these items. Similar directories for UUCP sites will also be established. These will be available as published documents from NetCentral (like the ARPAnet Directory), and will also be submitted to net.news.map, as is currently done. *** ONCE AGAIN, PLEASE RESPOND DIRECTLY TO ME BY MAIL ONLY: *** Rick Kiessig megatest!fortune!kiessig or harpo!fortune!kiessig or dsd!fortune!kiessig
bc (12/30/82)
I like the concept of some central organization taking over the maintenance of the net, but I wonder if we would not be re-inventing the wheel. It seems to me that all the features described in the USENET Corp. proposal will be provided by CSNET and its relatives. I think this alternative needs to be investigated. If there is anyone out there with the info, please post here or mail to me for summarization and posting the answers to the following questions: 1. What exactly will be the services and features of CSNET? 2. What will the charges be? 3. How does a site apply for connection to CSNET? Especially small sites? 4. How does one instantiate a net based on the CSNET model (a la CHEMNET, etc.)? Converting usenet over might be painful, but a UN*XNET starting from scratch, and delimited from CSNET might be practical. Bruce Cohen Intel usenet: ...{pur-ee,hplabs}!intelqa!omsvax!bc ARPAnet: hplabs!intelqa!omsvax!bc@UCB-C70
mel (12/31/82)
The Usenet, Inc. proposal (I advocate a sub-organization of Usenix, Inc. with participation of /usr/group and Software Tools) in no way can be handled by CSNET. CSNET has enmeshed itself with ARPANET and its hundreds of amateur lawyers to foist restrictions (real and imagined) onto the network world. We need an organization to enhance communication, not inhibit. Mel Haas , houxm!mel
lepreau (01/01/83)
Oh brother. Certainly the amount of communication in this epitome of anarachy, the uucp net, is remarkable. But the amount of lost mail and unreplyable cc lists and absurdly long paths is just as remarkable. I am sick and tired of people proclaiming that standards are for the birds. That may well be fine, and certainly fun, when hacking away at software on one machine, but IT FAILS TOTALLY WHERE NETWORKS ARE CONCERNED! If you don't agree on a common protocol then you can't talk. It's that simple. And if you don't agree on some sort of standards then you will have zilch reliablity and convenience. Every goddamn uucp site between you and me is perfectly free to throw this mail on the floor (as uucp does all the time, never mind rmail) and never tell anyone. And if someone redoes uucp and mail making them reliable and functional and give them away only half the sites will install them within a year. Yeah, it's real nice having no central control. But it's not going to last forever that way. Happy New Year. -Jay Lepreau (also at lepreau@utah-cs. Where we have just converted to arpa-dictated new protocols as of this morning. And we will survive and probably even benefit!)