Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!kth!sunic!dkuug!freja!skinfaxe!seindal From: seindal@skinfaxe.diku.dk (Rene' Seindal) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: EUnet, unido and USENET Message-ID: <4693@freja.diku.dk> Date: 24 Jul 89 14:56:07 GMT References: <588@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk> <882@corpane.UUCP> <8594@attctc.DALLAS.TX.US> <8276@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> <1989Jul20.102927.26127@coms.axis.fr> <917@utoday.UUCP> Sender: news@freja.diku.dk Lines: 51 wayne@dsndata.uucp (Wayne Schlitt) writes: > In article <917@utoday.UUCP> greenber@utoday.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg) writes: > > (It sorta sounds like EUNet is simply a European version of UUNET....) > yes, with one _major_ difference. uunet doesnt care if you > redistribute your news, eunet does. Apparently, some things just don't get through, across the pond. First, EUUG is a closed society of Unix users, and EUnet is a service to the members. This means it you are not a member of the EUUG, you cannot use EUnet. This is why some people refer to it as a club. Second, at least in some european countries, the PTTs hold a monopoly on datacommunication (they own the lines, and are in turn owned by the state), and will not tolerate commercial third party traffic of substantial volume. I am not an expert on these things, but do know that if the Danish part on EUnet where to allow non-EUUG members on the net, the PTT could easily put us out of business. Not only could they, but they probably would too. Thus, at least in Denmark, EUnet will have to stay a member service only. It is my impression that there are similar conditions in most of the other member-nations of EUUG. Because the PTTs will not allow non EUUG members on EUnet, news cannot be redistributed freely. It can only be redistributed to other EUUG members. EUner cannot allow the members to redistribute news freely to non-members, because the PTTs will not allow EUnet to. It is not in our hands. As to pricing, again the EUnet is a service to EUUG members, which can be considered a club. The rule, that all sites on EUnet share the costs equally, have been decided in a democratic fashion within the EUUG. The price policy is therefore chosen indirectly by the members of EUUG, and, I think, should not be questioned by outsides. It is none of their business. The situation here in Europe is very different fron the situation in the US. Please don't think it is the same. Those of you who do are making a big mistake. As I said before, I am not an expert on these political issues, and I might have made some mistakes in the above description of the European situation. If I have so, please correct me. I hope this discription of the conditions EUnet work under can help you understand why EUnet is not like USENET and why EUnet is not like UUNET. Eunet are subject to other rules and restrictions than the networks in the US, and is quite naturally different. Please try to understand this. Rene' Seindal (seindal@diku.dk).