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Path: utzoo!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Multi-User software is always full of restrictions
Message-ID: <249@looking.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 12-Mar-85 00:00:00 EST
Article-I.D.: looking.249
Posted: Tue Mar 12 00:00:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Mar-85 00:15:56 EST
Organization: Looking Glass Software, Waterloo, Ont
Lines: 19

An important note to add to the "restrictive software" debate is this:

Remember news is a multi-user piece of software.  Unlike single-user stuff,
other users can step on what you are doing, by making your groups full of
noise and garbage.

This is the same as an operating system.  With an OS, specific permissions
on files are called a feature, not a restriction.   Memory protection that
stops other users from writing on your memory is considered an essential
feature for useful work, nobody calls it a restriction.

In any system where a group of users are sharing a physical resource, such
as the net, restrictions are the norm.

It's because news doesn't have enough such restrictions that we have our
problems.  Remember the days when any typo created a new group?  We fixed
that and we should fix the rest.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473