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!kiessigbc (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-C70mel (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!)