Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!vsi1!altnet!uunet!ateng!chip From: chip@ateng.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) Newsgroups: news.misc Subject: Re: Usenet: Is it 'dying'? Message-ID: <1988Sep19.115310.8712@ateng.uucp> Date: 19 Sep 88 15:53:09 GMT References: <187@limbic.UUCP> <16463@apple.Apple.COM> <16139@onfcanim.UUCP> Reply-To: chip@ateng.UUCP (Chip Salzenberg) Organization: A T Engineering, Tampa, FL Lines: 24 According to dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale): >For three years (or perhaps more), a machine called "micomvax" >provided the major newsfeed for the Montreal area. [...] >Two months ago, micomvax decided to get out of the news forwarding >business. [...] >A couple of weeks after that, the administrators for many of the Montreal >machines met in a bar downtown, and worked out a new distribution network. This method of problem-solving may be more common -- and effective -- than the net.doomsayers would have us believe. For example, when AT&T bowed out of the news forwarding business, much of Florida was stranded without a news feed. After one evening of head-bashing and mapmaking, we (Tampa Bay area) sysadmins arrived at a scheme which is better than before (it includes redundant feeds originating at uunet and gatech). As a bonus, the tba groups are now propagated faster. >As long as there are enough people with the desire to support it, and >some spare machine cycles and disk blocks, Usenet will remain connected. Righto. -- Chip Salzenbergor A T Engineering My employer may or may not agree with me. The urgent leaves no time for the important.