Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site watmath.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!bstempleton From: bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton) Newsgroups: net.news Subject: Usenet, Inc. -- The Saga Continues... Message-ID: <5586@watmath.UUCP> Date: Sat, 30-Jul-83 13:18:41 EDT Article-I.D.: watmath.5586 Posted: Sat Jul 30 13:18:41 1983 Date-Received: Sat, 30-Jul-83 23:58:29 EDT Sender: bstempleton@watmath.UUCP Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 88 Well, I must not be expressing my points well, because there is more opposition to this sort of company than I thought. What makes you think that the usenet isn't paying a profit making organization? What is the Bell System? My original suggestion for usenet inc. was to form a company that acted as little more than a transport mechanism (like phone lines), software supporter, database maintainer and mail router. The idea here is that the usenet inc machines would be on telenet or tymnet so that almost all sites could reach them by a local call, and the transmission charges would be reduced by the use of this data network. This would mean that as long as the central machines had the capacity, any site could join usenet for less, and without having to seek a megacorporation for a mentor. The site would maintain the central mail routing database, and suddenly mail would become much more reliable and easy to handle. Sites who connected to this computer could be only 1 site away from the most central node on the net, if this is important to them. At no time have I suggested censorship or control of what flows through the net by this transport company. What I have just said could be all the company does. Since Bell, Berkeley and Dec in a way have already dedicated machines to unix networking, this could easily be enough. But I have also had ideas that can exist on top of this structure. I am getting comments (some - some +) on them now. They are: 1) Using the central company as a base for moderators. Our net is currently distributed, and Lauren thinks this is not barrier to moderated groups. I differ, as I think speed of reply is important. If the moderator is several hops away (and some net hops insert delays of days) then it could be a week before my submitted article makes it back to my half of the net. This is the situation we had before we merged the arpanet digests with net groups at sri. Something fairly central will reduce this a great deal. You could even have alternate routes for messages marked time critical. (You could do this now, but the massive number of sites involved would make this a very nasty task) 2) The sender paying for mail. This is the way just about everything else works in the communications industry. As long as you allow people to accept collect mail, this should not cause too many problems. It does solve the junk mail problem. Done right, the cost for the average electronic mail message should be less than what the post office charges. 3) The sender paying for news rejected by a moderator. Again this is an analog of the real world. If the editors of a magazine refuse your story (ie. you can't get the recipients to pay) you can publish it yourself. A fair bit cheaper on the usenet. I estimate with current net size we are looking at about $4 to post a 1K byte article. Postings where people feel it is obvious the poster should pay would also be charged in this way. I refer to commercial product announcements, job ads, that sort of thing. 4) Active links to other nets and machines. Usenet inc. would go after connections to "The Source", "Compuserve", perhaps an official CSnet or ARPA (unlikely) connection. Also to the millions of microcomputer users out there. 5) Links to the postal services. Currently the post office will accept electronic mail, print it in a remote city and deliver it for you. Usenet inc. could provide this link so that you could send postal mail from your terminal. This would be a big boon in border crossing mail, which is usally verrrrrry slllloooooowwwww, not to mention expensive. Compared to the one-day services, there would be no beating electronic mail. 6) Unix consulting. In a central position, this company could offer unix consulting of all sorts, from expert consulting to answering user questions via fast net mail. A site without a guru could consider a direct usenet inc. connection as a substitute for one at a fraction of the cost. I hope this clears things up. If this company gets of the ground without the backing of some giant like AT&T, it is clear that it will only implement what the most customers want. That's business, folks. And now to some of Lauren's points: 1) By "Forbid" in the bill of rights note, I meant that the COMPANY would not be allowed to do things (like certain forms of censorship, for example), not that the customers would be barred. 2) You suggest big sites would not connect to further sites because they have no charity? How does the net run now, then? Brad. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304