Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!mtxinu!sybase!yak!cuccia From: cuccia@yak.sybase.com (Nick Cuccia) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: EUnet, unido and USENET Message-ID: <5226@sybase.sybase.com> Date: 25 Jul 89 09:23:14 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> <4693@freja.diku.dk> Sender: news@sybase.sybase.com Reply-To: cuccia@yak.sybase.com (Nick Cuccia) Organization: Sybase, Inc. Lines: 51 In article <4693@freja.diku.dk> seindal@skinfaxe.diku.dk (Rene' Seindal) writes: >Apparently, some things just don't get through, across the pond. I think that much of this is because of the inflammatory choice of words used by posters on your side of the pond. Content tends to get buried under the fluff (to use a polite word... ;-). >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. Okay, what do you mean by closed? Is EUUG limited to big vendors? Does it have a ceiling on the total membership? Or is it "closed" in the sense of Usenix or /usr/group (Uniforum for the non-Unix-literate :-(), that only those who can dish up the US$40/yr can be members? If the latter is true, then it isn't really "closed." What are the criteria for becoming a EUUG member? (Sorry, this is peripheral, but a) I'm curious, and b) it seems to have some bearing on other things said here). >[PTT monopoly => limited commercial 3rd party traffic,] >[=> no non-EUUG-affiliated sites on EUNet in Denmark (and possibly)] >[other European countries.] The one thing that I do understand about the EEC is that you have eight or so separate sovereign nations in an area smaller than that of the US west of the Mississippi (heck, a number of Luxembourgs could fit within the Los Angeles city limits, and San Bernardino County (in southern California) is roughly the size of the Netherlands, Belgium, or Denmark). That means that there are at least eight PTTs (or, in the case of the UK, Government- appointed Private Carriers (British Telecom)) to deal with. Granted this, I'd give your comments the credence they deserve only in the case of countries whose PTTs have similar policies to yours. This does not, however, mean that having a pyramid-based distribution (with each layer recovering the costs (not necessarily profiting) from the layer below) isn't a reasonable thing to do where it can be applied. If unido is allowed to accept payment (for cost recovery or for profit) for feeds (whether they are to EUUG- or non-EUUG-member sites), why can't (and shouldn't) those downstream sites be able to do the same for sites downstream from them? What's wrong with a tree, rather than a brush (one root, two levels including the root, and lots of branches) net structure, in the case of unido? Curious, --Nick =============================================================================== Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb...--Batman Nick Cuccia System Admin/Postmaster, Sybase, Incorporated cuccia@sybase.com 6475 Christie Av. Emeryville, CA 94608 {sun,lll-tis,pyramid,pacbell}!sybase!cuccia +1 415 596-3500 ===============================================================================