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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!mcvax!vu44!jack
From: jack@vu44.UUCP (Jack Jansen)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: If you want good news software, you'll have to pay for it
Message-ID: <442@vu44.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Oct-84 11:59:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: vu44.442
Posted: Tue Oct 23 11:59:53 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 24-Oct-84 19:06:33 EDT
References: <197@looking.UUCP>
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 36

[I'm a poor lonesome superuser, far away from /]

 Oh no... *please*, no commercial news software. If that ever
happens, it will probably be the end of the net. Don't
forget that there are many different versions of unix, running
on many different types of hardware, with many different
terminals attached, communicating over many different links.
If your plan is to be a success, you'll have to distribute
binaries only, to stop all of those system administrators of
hacking in their own nifty features, and so you would have
to do all the maintanance *yourself*. You can guess what this
means, having access to 20 different machines on a commercial
basis......

 Also, for a fee of $100,- I don't think that the company would
be very fast in repairing bugs. At the moment, most bugs get
fixed a few weeks after they are discovered. After this, it
takes another year to install the new software on 90% of the
machines, and the other 10% takes another 5 years,
but still, the repaired software is available.
Do you think a commercial firm would be willing to distribute
bug-fixes and new software versions for, lets say, 20 different
configurations every three months or so? Well, I wouldn't do
it, at least not for $100 per site.

 I do agree that the current state of the net is messy due to
all the different versions in use, and especially since there
are lots of admins who don't update the software now and again,
but I think that commercial software would only worsen the
situation.

 Maybe we can think of some scheme where sites refuse to
connect to other sites if their software is too old, or where
a backbone site can force the installation of new sofware on
the sites it is serving?