rodney@sun.ipl.rpi.edu (Rodney Peck II) (06/22/91)
In article <44913@netnews.upenn.edu> chip@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Charles H. Buchholtz) writes: >If someone puts a big sign on their home saying, "We buy an sell used >books", and then leaves the door unlocked, I think I would be excused >for walking in thinking it was a bookstore. > >If Archie tells me that foo.bar.edu is the anonymous FTP source for >wonderwidget, then I assume that this is a public service. If someone >writes to comp.sys.sun and says that all the Sun patches are available >on boff.baz.edu, and that you can log in as guest to browse through >them, then I assume that that is a public service. This opens a big question that I've thought of from time to time about Archie and Ed's comp.archives pointers. I have noticed that my machine (ipl.rpi.edu) has managed to appear in the archie database and in comp.archives even though it's not a public resource in the strict sense. meaning: I'm the system administrator and I never told anyone to have the general public use our anonymous ftp service, much less put us in a global database for people looking for archive sites. It's not that big a deal actually, but to apply your bookstore situation, this seems to be like my happening to have a few copies of a journal article that I gave to some people and one of them (not me) made a big sign that says "journal library here" and stuck it on my front door. Coincidentally, that front door is "unlocked" in the anonymous ftp sense. So, in effect, it appears to the archie or comp.archives browser that ipl.rpi.edu is some sort of archive for the general public, but offically, it isn't. Practically speaking, if I wanted to keep things clear about this, I should have the ftpd print a message saying that this isn't a public facility. Since the load on the server and the potential for harm is minimal, I don't really mind. Just some thoughts... -- Rodney