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From: randall@Virginia.EDU (Randall Atkinson)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: building an interstate (data) highway with no roadmaps
Message-ID: <1991Jun19.135522.6585@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Date: 19 Jun 91 13:55:22 GMT
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  I for one would like to see any NREN proposal include the keeping of
a "archive library catalog" that contains pointers to software
archives kept at various sites across the Internet.  It needn't keep
pointers to all of the tiny anonymous ftp sites, but an index by item
that included information on whether it were located on one or more of
the major archive sites (Simtel20, UUNET, WUarchive, prep, ucbvax,
grape, ncsa, etc.).

  It would be *nice* if something like Simtel20 were made available
and kept orderly as part of the NREN, but it isn't essential because
there are enough kind sites already that the net could get by.  The
catalog pointing to where to look for things is already becoming a
problem.  When I was at GE, people generally used *me* or a couple of
other people as the catalog and that wasn't fun.  I know that the same
practice exists at a lot of sites -- someone who has been around a
little while becomes the catalog of "the usual places to look."

Just a few partly-baked thoughts...

Randall Atkinson
randall@Virginia.EDU