Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!zazen!dogie!anderson From: anderson@dogie.macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: *** Top Prize Winner - IMPACT Software Contest *** Message-ID: <1991Apr25.180955.10161@macc.wisc.edu> Date: 25 Apr 91 18:09:55 GMT Article-I.D.: macc.1991Apr25.180955.10161 References: <1991Apr25.130046.26086@cs.cornell.edu> <1991Apr25.134348.25432@ni.umd.edu> <1991Apr25.143604.3979@macc.wisc.edu> Sender: news@macc.wisc.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison Lines: 69 In article cnh5730@maraba.tamu.edu writes: >In article <1991Apr25.143604.3979@macc.wisc.edu> >anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes: >Excuse me? I'm quite sure >that is a violation of NSFnet appropriate use guidelines. >1) NSFnet is not USENET But for all practical purposes within the USA, NSFnet is the primary backbone of the Internet, and the Internet carries probably 99% of Usenet traffic, and most Internet networks subscribe to the very same or very similar appropriate use policies. So in all due respect, your point is irrelevant. >2) The non-commercial restrictions to net access historically have >been pretty much a matter of netiquette, and netiquette, like any >other set of social norms, evolves (read "changes") over time to suit >the real-time needs of the society. Historically is not now, you might notice. The time-honored anarchies of Usenet, of which I am one of the most ardent supporters, are long since the tail wagging the dog, and getting shorter to boot. So in all due respect, your point is irrelevant. >example: within the last year, HP-Apollo users demanded that HP apply >for permission with net-administrators to make a newsgroup part of >their service-support structure, and that updates and the like be >distributed through this newsgroup. This arrangement was approved by >the net-gods and is now in place. That too is irrelevant. As I already pointed out, the issue is not use of the net by commercial entities, its *commercials* by those entities for personal, private gain. >3) Brad Cox recently posted to this very same USENET newsgroup >suggesting that (and I paraphrase) severe separation of edu-research >and commercial enterprise may be a contributing factor in American >difficulty with being competitive with, for example, the Japanese. Whereas severe conflation of the educational/research enterprises with the commercial ones may be a contributing factor in the Japanese having difficulty with being as innovative as, for example, the Americans. Neither point is relevant. >4) I never cease to wonder at the willingness of folks to cut off >their nose to spite their face. Nor indeed at the tendency of some folks to exemplify considerable irrelevant righteousness. You must have an advanced degree in that. >"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, > and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." > -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche <> Many a man fails to become a thinker for the sole reason <> that his memory is too good. -- Friedrich Neitzsche -- Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson NeXTmail w/attachments: anderson@yak.macc.wisc.edu Bitnet: anderson@wiscmacc Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888