Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu!sugar!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: UUPSI's new rules
Message-ID: <=ACAI76@xds13.ferranti.com>
Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
References: <40584@cup.portal.com> <61034439@bfmny0.BFM.COM> <-EBAZ+5@xds13.ferranti.com> <12312497@bfmny0.BFM.COM>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 91 16:05:21 GMT

In article <12312497@bfmny0.BFM.COM> tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
> Yes, politics and controversy of one sort have been a recurrent fact of
> net administrative life for some time.  But these have largely been of a
> technical or practical nature.  What's new is the ETHICAL, motivational,
> even cultural aspect.

As soon as the Internet and Usenet joined the ethical, motivational, and
cultural differences between the two groups of users and sites has been
a problem. The whole debate over DNS versus the maps is a result of the
differences between Usenet and Internet culture. An RFC blessing bang
paths would have been the logical solution to the problem. The technical
botch that resulted, with % and source-routing and the like was not the
result of a technical problem. It was cultural. The creation of alt and
biz as a place for stuff that doesn't belong on the Internet is a technical
solution to an ethical problem. UUNET and UUPSI are themselves a result
of this... not a cause.

> at least we are not treated to
> transplanted sales types spewing Rotarian commonplaces about the way
> "the market is going."

No, we're treated to the sight of the DNS folks preserving the empire
of the atsign. Or look at TCP/IP versus OSI: you think that's not a matter
of marketing on another level? For that matter the whole UNIX phenomenon
is the result of marketing: BSD surely didn't win on the Internet as a
result of technical superiority. It won because it was "free".

> The common, underlying assumption of the Net I
> know is that moving as much data as possible to as many people as
> possible is the MAIN priority.

You mean like alt.sex.pictures?

> It used to be that no big net player would *demean* itself by squatting
> on a perfectly functional, standard, available resource -- technically
> completely ready to go -- and refuse to pass data because it was
> insufficiently lucrative.  But that's what we're starting to see.  And
> it's going to get worse before -- if -- it gets better.

Just try to get a UUCP news feed from a typical university or business.
You're not a small personal machine trying to stay on the net as your feeds
come and go at the whim of random managers and administrators. This is
just business as usual. At least UUPSI doesn't care about the color of
your money and isn't subject to the whims of the state legislature.

> Usenet will have to choose between Babbage and Babbitt.

Babbage never did get his machine built.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  `-_-'  peter@ferranti.com
+1 713 274 5180.  'U`  "Have you hugged your wolf today?"