Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!sgi!decwrl!palo-alto!vixie From: vixie@palo-alto.DEC.COM (Paul Vixie) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: this might be getting out of hand... Message-ID: <3746@palo-alto.DEC.COM> Date: 9 Aug 88 22:37:48 GMT References: <676@bacchus.DEC.COM> <881@vsi1.UUCP> <340@ateng.UUCP> <1966@stpstn.UUCP> Organization: DEC Western Research Lab Lines: 48 I saw this today, and it occurs to be that we're bashing benefactors: In article <1966@stpstn.UUCP> aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri) writes: # >Amen! Both rutgers and harvard are marked as "dead" in my local adjustments # >file, which is automatically included by my pathalias wrapper script. # # I can echo the sentiment on harvard. Much of what I sent anywhere near # them gets thrown to husc6 for some unknown reason, and as far as I can # tell husc6's mailer doesn't even look at the address, it just bounces [...] Sun, Rutgers, and Harvard are fairly well-connected sites that pass a lot of mail without charging for it. Sometimes they do the "wrong" thing in various details, where "wrong" seems to depend on who you ask, but these facts remain: 1. network connectivity would be more chaotic without them to act as collection points for local geographic areas; 2. they are doing it all for free, which is a burden on their machines and on their administrators; 3. their machines and their administrators are forever on the edge of overload; 4. those of us who explicitly route around them because of supposed "wrongness" or "rudeness" are actually doing them a small favor by removing some of their network load. So, while I am one of those who rags on various sites for doing "wrong" things, I still recognize that these sites are still essentially bene- ficial to the network and that "their hearts are in the right place." I'm deluged in mail and news articles arguing for and against the details I've presented; lots of people agree with me; lots of people disagree. I will try to respond cogently when I can pick the out the juicy stuff. But in the mean time, I want to offer Sun, Rutgers, Harvard, and other sites that are getting blasted this week a big T H A N K Y O U for all the GOOD things you do for all us ungrateful wretches. Flame fest to resume tomorrow, same time, same news group :-). -- Paul Vixie Digital Equipment Corporation Work: vixie@dec.com Play: paul@vixie.UUCP Western Research Laboratory uunet!decwrl!vixie uunet!vixie!paul Palo Alto, California, USA +1 415 853 6600 +1 415 864 7013