Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 (MC830713); site vu44.UUCP 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?