Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site peora.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!petsd!peora!jer
From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: impending newsgroup cuts
Message-ID: <1774@peora.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Nov-85 08:17:05 EST
Article-I.D.: peora.1774
Posted: Tue Nov  5 08:17:05 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Nov-85 04:28:47 EST
References: <472@spice.cs.cmu.edu> <6090@utzoo.UUCP> <1753@peora.UUCP> <17070@watmath.UUCP>
Organization: Perkin-Elmer SDC, Orlando, Fl.
Lines: 53

> In article <1753@peora.UUCP> jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) writes:
> >I hope that if Mr. Spencer's selfish desire to cancel net.sources.mac ...
>
> Nothing selfish about it.  Mr. Spencer's at one of Ontario's financially
> strapped universities and he (and the powers that be) find it hard to
> justify paying so much in long distance charges for so much repetitive
> and sometimes useless junk.
>
> Now if you would like to prove yourself un-selfish, you should offer to
> pay for his long distance costs.

We already pay the long-distance costs for a university here in Orlando.
All Mr. Spencer has to do is quit sending net.sources.mac through his site
(and quit receiving it at his site), since he doesn't like it.

> Very few people on the net (myself included) pay for the privilege, or do
> anything to help maintain the net.  I look at it as a simple case of "put
> up or shut up".  If you want to see net.sources.mac, you pay for it,
> because *someone* has to.

We do pay for it, since we have no local neighbors, and it comes all the
way from New Jersey.  There's a major distinction between saying "no" to
something yourself, and telling everyone else they can't do it too just
because you can't or don't want to.  Many problems today result from the
inability or unwillingness to make this distinction.

The problem is that some sites take on an unusual load, and become
"backbone" sites, and this becomes all intermingled with notions of power
and authority.  It is the responsibility of Usenet participants, in my
opinion, to each bear the costs of part of the long-distance transmission
of Usenet data.  If the Usenet can't survive in *that* way, then that's
simple economics, and it's fine; I suspect, indeed, that it is part of the
long-term evolutionary direction of the net.  However, one can reduce
one's costs without exercising one's hostilities against particular
newsgroups.  Look at National Semiconductor; did Chuqui go and ask people
to cancel net.sources.mac when they had to reduce their costs?

Some time ago our management did a cost analysis of our Usenet feed, and
determined that it actually was a very small proportion of the long
distance costs at this site.  The reason is that we exercise restraint and
prudence in the allocation of resources.  It only takes one long-distance
Usenet feed to serve a city.  With multiple sites willing to bear the
cost, you can partition the transmission of data and further reduce the
expense at each site, something I don't see much of at present.  If one
takes on greater responsibility than this, one must expect a diversity of
interests in the people served.  It's just one of those tradeoffs; with
great power comes great responsibility.
-- 
Shyy-Anzr:  J. Eric Roskos
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