Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: USENIX Board Studies UUCP
Message-ID: <1989Nov16.182104.23746@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <287@usenix.UUCP> <1624@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: Thu, 16 Nov 89 18:21:04 GMT

In article <1624@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes:
>|        o How do we distribute the final product?  On what terms?
>
>  If this is to be a success I think giving it away is the only
>reasonable choice. If it is truely better vendors and standards groups
>will adopt it, but having it free would prevent the situation with
>current uucp, in which there are a large number of reimplementations
>from various sources, with various levels of compatibility and
>reliability.

An even more pointed example is the ACSNet software.  It is approximately
the equivalent of UUCP, plus a number of extras.  In many ways it looks
better than UUCP.  But outside of Australia, where its ubiquitous presence
makes it essentially a necessity if you want to communicate, it's never 
caught on.  In my opinion, a major reason for that is that it costs money.
Not a lot... but enough to make it uncompetitive with UUCP.

If you really want a UUCP replacement to catch on, it has to be something
that *everyone*, even the folks with nervous lawyers or absolutely no money,
can run, and that vendors can distribute without extra paperwork or cost.
-- 
A bit of tolerance is worth a  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
megabyte of flaming.           | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu