Acbosgd.926
net.news
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!cbosg!cbosgd!mark
Sun Dec 27 12:35:07 1981
Re: proosed newsnet policies
By "cashless" I meant that one machine cannot charge another machine to
send it news.  I would also hope that sites do not add a surcharge for
users to read news, although the normal charging algorithms for real
resources consumed (CPU time, ports, etc) could still be charged for.
In practice, if site A wants B to pay A so that A will send B news,
B can probably find another site C that will send it news for free.

The handshaking protocol is already implemented in B netnews and will
be in the released version in January.  It's optional, in that a given
connection can handshake if it wants to.  The handshaking does not make
sense for many sites that only get news one way anyway.  Since the handshake
slows down the transmission of news (A must call B which calls A back which
calls B back) each site must make the decision separately.  In particular,
for a passive site that is polled once a day, you probably DON'T want to
use this protocol.

	Mark Horton