Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!bbn!bbn.com!denbeste From: denbeste@bbn.com (Steven Den Beste) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Franchise Opportunity Keywords: Commerce, commercial, business, etc Message-ID: <44233@bbn.COM> Date: 14 Aug 89 13:47:51 GMT References: <434@tp2.Waterloo.NCR.COM> <1989Aug9.140945.5371@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <937@utoday.UUCP> <339@m2xenix.UUCP> <943@utoday.UUCP> <3992@looking.on.ca> Sender: news@bbn.COM Reply-To: denbeste@BBN.COM (Steven Den Beste) Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA Lines: 64 In article <3992@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: >USENET is a network, run by site administrators by authority of machine >owners, ostensibly for the benefit of the net readers on those machines. "USENET" is not a synonym for "Sites connected by UUCP". USENET includes much of the ARPANet, CSNet and Bitnet, not to mention many local area networks and some of the Milnet. The ARPANet is paid for by the U.S. Government, through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. THEY have set a policy for the ARPANet: No commercial use. > > ***************************** > There is only one criterion on Usenet. Do readers want it and are > admins thus willing to pay to move it around for them? > ***************************** If DARPA pulls the plug on letting USENET pass through the ARPANet, you're going to be surprised by how much slower USENET works. > >That's it. THERE IS NO GOVERNING IDEOLOGY. The governing ideology is pronounced "DARPA". > Say that to yourself until >you understand it. DARPA. DARPA. DARPADARPADARPA. Sigh. Still sounds like the U.S. Government to me. [I suppose as a Canadian, you can say "There is no US Government", but I look a little silly doing so when they take a quarter of every paycheck I get. Maybe some of that pays for the ARPANet?] > Usenet is not commercial or non-commercial. The ARPANet is non-commercial by decree. > It is >not public. It has no charter or official spirit. It has no rules, only >conventions. ...except when it uses the ARPANet for communication. > It has *no* ideology, other than, of course, the ideology of >having no ideology... :-) I'm sorry, you're just plain wrong. What you are describing is only that part of USENET which relies only on UUCP. To most people, those parts are also "the wrong side of the tracks". Even those sites which don't directly connect to the ARPANet actually benefit from it, in the form of speedy news distribution. You can't simply discount it the way you are. [Need I say it? The above is me, not BBN.] Steven C. Den Beste || denbeste@bbn.com (ARPA/CSNET) BBN Communications Corp. || {apple, usc, husc6, csd4.milw.wisc.edu, 150 Cambridge Park Dr. || gatech, oliveb, mit-eddie, Cambridge, MA 02140 || ulowell}!bbn.com!denbeste (USENET)