Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!relay.cs.toronto.edu!lsuc!smd Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp From: smd@lsuc.on.ca (Sean Doran) Subject: Re: BITFTP grief! Message-ID: Reply-To: smd@lsuc.on.ca Organization: Qqn qui ne sait rien du tout References: <1991May15.042146.29800@iguana.uucp> <1991May17.041635.4503@iguana.uucp> Date: 19 May 91 04:50:00 GMT Lines: 94 In an article (Message-Id: <1991May17.041635.4503@iguana.uucp>), merce@iguana.uucp (Jim Mercer) wrote: | In article stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes: [...] | it's assholes and ignoramuses who absolutely positively have to have THAT | file, but are not willing to pay their own way. More to the point, it's people who have to have THAT file, and who do not consider that intermediate sites ought to be consulted before it is ordered that cause the most problems. If people who have to have big files took the trouble to ask around locally, they'd probably find it somewhere much closer than BITFTP@PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU. If the people who had ordered huge VMS files or gcc/gas had asked us first, we would have pointed them at the University of Toronto or taken steps to uucp the files directly to them. Instead, they (like many proponents of BITFTP) argue that BITFTP is an essential service, and that intermediate sites for some reason ought to be able to handle 16 Mbytes worth of extra data, just go ahead and grab files willy-nilly. The only time that intermediate sites generally ever learn of MBAS activity is when it is drawing attention to itself (i.e., causing problems). It's mostly people who lack courtesy and respect for intermediate sites and their sysadmins/postmasters who are really irritating. | email is for messaging, not file transfers. Unless _everyone_ along the way gives a direct OK to a file transfer. | > What will you do when someone posts a request for something and | >dozens of people mail it to him? If the somebody had been thinking, she or he would have asked for tips on where to find the material in question, rather than posting a "please send XYZ to me" message. This sort of courtesy is something that does not always manifest itself in many users. "Education", Jim's watchword, is the key here. | >> how much of a net.lobby do we have to do to get pucc.princeton.edu to shut | >> down BITFTP? | > | > No! This is a valuable service to the entire UUCP community. Well, at | >least it is here. | | No! BITFTP is a terrible DIS-service to the entire UUCP community. That's true given that it is (was?) a well advertised way to grab files so easily that inexperienced users could quickly become inconsiderate users. All MBASes which don't follow the rules that Brian Kantor recently posted for his MBAS (i. Send to neighbouring sites; ii. Send to sites directly on the Internet; iii. Send to sites directly connected to uunet) firstly make it very difficult to predict the path that the MBAS will choose, and secondly makes it impossible for the MBAS to know whether any intermediate sites might get crunched. | talk to the sites in Ontario, Canada, who are possibly going to lose all | internet connectivity partially due to increased mail volume (ie. BITFTP). Alternatively, talk to the sites in Ontario face the prospect of paying $500/a to our Regional Internet (ONet) if they want to send or receive mail across it. The policy is justified by pointing out that the unconnected UUCP sites in Ontario are getting service from ONet that they aren't paying for, to the detriment of the ONet co-operative and its member-organizations. | > Your problem (which is the same problem here, BTW) is that a UUCP | >connection will happily accept that which it cannot store. The BITFTP | >connection is just a symptom. No, John Stanley, the problem here is that people do not think of the consequences of ordering huge files across a store-and-forward network of UUCP sites (and an often costly one, too) and even if they do, they don't bother to even advise sites along the way that they'd like to order something big that will be travelling through them. A simple note to the postmaster of every mail-handling site between you and BITFTP saying: ``I would like to order file xyz from BITFTP. It will probably travel back through you. Is that OK?'' is a good idea. It's an especially good idea, given that one of those postmasters might have a copy that doesn't have to be chopped up and mailed to you, but can be uucped directly. | [ Jim Mercer work: jim@lsuc.on.ca home: merce@iguana.uucp +1 519 570-3467 ] | [ "Anarchists Unite!" - seen spray painted on a wall ] -- Sean Doran la Commission des Jeunes liberaux du Canada