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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!mcvax!jim
From: jim@mcvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: cost of sending netnews to aliens
Message-ID: <5322@mcvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Aug-83 01:12:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: mcvax.5322
Posted: Wed Aug  3 01:12:41 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Aug-83 23:20:50 EDT
References: <1869@floyd.UUCP>
Organization: Math.Centre, Amsterdam
Lines: 44

Well, as an alien, perhaps I should use my zap-gun on those
HILFs who break the rules and then there would be no problem?

But, lets look at the current situation. In all the recent debate,
no one in Europe has complained about the supposedly imminent
collapse of the net, or about the number of articles which are just
so many bytes in the wind (at least I haven't seen any, perhaps
Andy is moderating us already?). 

Why is that? Well, the net isn't collapsing over here, and is already
run on a pay-as-you-read basis. I can't speak for the UK, and I am sure,
as in all things, the UK would not like somewhere else in Europe to
speak for her (the UK is only GEOGRAPHICALLY close to Europe), but the
UK gets it's news free from vax135; I don't know how much they get.
And we get a small number of groups through philabs, ones which people
asked us to get, not a blanket coverage anymore. Hopefully we will soon
be getting some more news groups from decvax, and to those sites which
ask for them, we will re-distribute. Another major manufacturer has
offered some free satellite time, which we are investigating.

So where is our problem? I think only you have a problem. We are in the
fortunate position of starting up late and having someone (Teus Hagen)
who put things on a nice footing. There is a Dutch saying, there is no
point in filling in the hole after the cow has drowned, and that is
what Usenet Inc. would be. And, as pointed out, you would really run into
problems when if you tried to expand it over more than one country, the
sum of the bureaucracies of 12 countries is MUCH more than the individual
parts.

As to moderating, that is already being done here on a communal, per-group
basis, witness the fate of net.general. But it means we have to keep trying
to find cheaper ways to obtain the groups, so we can afford to make some
mistakes and chuck them later. However, the real problem is that the
(soon to be) 3 news feeds supply different groups, and there is no
net.anything passed between the UK and Europe, so we would perhaps not get
a fair and unbiased choice. And anyway, how could you possibly ask even
a HILF like Andy Tannenbaum to waste his time doing that (Hmmmm, perhaps it
would keep him quiet?)?

I don't know how this panic started, perhaps it was just someone who
wondered how a thing could be so large without any organisation.
Maybe he should look at US foreign policy as an example.

Jim McKie  Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam  ...{decvax|philabs}!mcvax!jim