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From: waltje@minixug.mugnet.org (Fred 'The Rebel' van Kempen)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: uunet service improvement suggestions (you asked for it...)
Message-ID: <9104075129@minixug.mugnet.org>
Date: 7 Apr 91 15:07:29 GMT
References: <3628@dagobah.UUCP>
Organization: MINIX User Group Holland (NLMUG)   -  MUGNET  -
Lines: 131

mis@Seiden.com (Mark Seiden) wrote:
> In comp.mail.uucp rick adams writes:

Shit.  Mark, is it too much of a bother to be polite and type people's
names with the first characters in uppercase?

> thanks for your clarification of the business relationship.  i am sure
> people (i among them) are interested in knowing the facts though i
> would have prefered that they be presented by some board member not so
> involved with uunet. (i've been called a few things, but never "the
> Seiden"...  sounds like some sort of mythological monster...)
Probably as in "the Seiden guy" ... right Rick?

>>UUNETs remaining financial ties with USENIX consist of paying back
>>USENIX the money that UUNET LOST in the early days when USENIX was running it.
> 
>>When the final payment is made on 11/1/91, USENIX will have received
>>every cent it risked on UUNET with interest. A rather happy
>>scenarion considering they were prepared to lose it completely if the
>>experiment failed.
> 
> (what's the interest rate on that loan?)
> 
> what you say is true of any investment.  take risk, get reward or
> maybe lose it.  in this case, am i right that you get the future
> reward, and what does usenix, the organization, get?
USENIX quit the "UUNET" project, so, being a financial administrator myself,
I would say that USENIX do not get any future revenues.  UUNET is "brave"
enough to go on, for which they will also take the full responsibility.
It is common economix that business people that dare take up a venture,
will either lose their money or win some.  I indeed am planning on
requesting UUNET's balance sheets of 1989 and 1990, but I do not think
that UUNET is truly a money maker (that is, on the pure USENET side.. their
other ventures like the Telebit deal and the "books" stuff is something
profitable for both UUNET and its customers) !

> so now i understand that the usenix board, the usenix membership, and
> uunet customers have nothing to say about uunet policies. of course
> they can vote with their feet, if datacomm lines even have feet.  say,
> is there any litigation threatened or been filed against uunet by a
> customer or ex-customer?

I just became a customer of UUNET.  It is true, there were lots of problems
with getting them to answer any calls, but thanks to the Sweet Voice of
Laurie Leonard, all turned out well....

Just for people who do not read comp.os.minix: I am the founder of the
(mostly Western Europe) "rebel" network called MUGNET ("MINIX User Group
International Hobbyist Network"), which is now a fully world-wide network.
Because of its size, we could no longer botther the people who are currently
doing things like DNS and MX for us, so we started changing to UUNET.

Contrary to common belief, UUNET _is_not_an_expensive_ service.  In most
European countries, the _starting_ fees for the same services we will be
getting from UUNET are _at_least_ triple (to Piet: no, don't argue with
me.  We checked this very carefully in 6 countries...) !!!

Anyway.  I am also not very happy with certain things at UUNET (people
suddenly stop replying to your messages, and such), but the telephone
operators and customer service people are very helpful.  Of course, this
may depend on your own manners.  I sometimes get flame-calls myself, to
which I respond with a similar attitude.  We're all human...

About Rick Adam's presence and influence:

	I am the founder of MUGNET (yes, the ENTIRE thing), and I am
	also the founder of many MUG's in many countries.  I am also
	the author of the software packages that are used to get people
	connected to the Net. Wow...

	Does this make me a tiran?  Granted, I take STRICT rules when
	it comes to routing, poll times, domain names and such, and I
	even dare say I try to educate people a bit to "everlasting
	USENET happiness", since most of them come fresh from the
	non-NET MSDOS world....

	The point is: I am in both NLMUG _and_ MUGNET boards, and have
	a leading role there.  Rick Adams is in both USENIX and UUNET
	boards.  He is also a very good programmer :-)
	Why can't people be in such circumstances without getting flames?

	I think it should be PROVEN first that Rick Adams is getting
	_personal_ revenues from being in both organizations, other
	than his salary as a board member.  Rick, please comment on
	this, pref. via Email.  I will summarize to get this piece
	of net.garbage down to the minimum.

> so why did uunet transform itself from a non-profit into a for-profit?
> did usenix somehow benefit by that transformation?  i don't believe
> that the details have been made public...

Get real.  UUNET _is_ a fairly large institution, which serves a great
number of people in the world, NOT ONLY AMERICAN PEOPLE!  I, being a
customer, see nothing wrong with UUNET being for-profit.  However, I
_do_ reserve the right to ask for financial reports, since UUNET is a
public corporation.  Why do American Citizens always think that any
amount of commerce in USENET, like UUNET going for-profit, is ugly?

I had a similar fight with another person, who is probably reading this
as well.  I am sure he by now understands that not all people see commerce
on the USENET network as a no-no.

I do not know what the status with USENIX is, but, as far as I am con-
cerned, UUNET has every right to go its own way.  It shows that they
"understand" that, being a for-profit org, they cannot be involved too
much with a non-profit org like USENIX.

I _do_ think it is time for UUNET, USENIX and Rick Adams to explain this
situation in a separate posting, to get this out once and for all (or,
in good Usenet tradition: until the next batch of people start to complain)..

Can this be done without my Telebit getting overheated by the temperature
of the postings?  Flames are flammable...

> i find it regretful that the current arrangement in fact seems to
> enforce the autonomy of the two organizations (hence no formal
> accountability) and adams has shown he won't engage in informally 
> dialogue either.
Which is the ONLY thing I am in agreement with.  USENIX and UUNET are
going their own way, and that should be OK to all of us.  However, as
long as these orgs STILL have strings attached, they ARE more or less
responsible for each other.  Rick is a board member of both orgs, and
general spokesman of UUNET, so he SHOULD post a decent, flameless
explanation of what is going on.

> mark seiden, mis@seiden.com, 1-(203) 329 2722 (voice), 1-(203) 322 1566 (fax)

Fred `The Rebel' N. van Kempen,
MUGNET Operational Maintainer (pheww!)
waltje@uwalt.nl.mugnet.org
+31 252 230 205