Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Copyright status of the netnews software
Message-ID: <7683@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 21-Feb-87 21:35:53 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.7683
Posted: Sat Feb 21 21:35:53 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Feb-87 21:35:53 EST
References: <1808@hoptoad.uucp> <539@hao.UCAR.EDU>, <1311@hplabsc.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 56

> The deal with paying for a domain registration is even more of a really
> bad setup.  As Greg was, I was shocked to hear that the USENIX Usenet group 
> was going to *charge* money for domain registration.  So much for the
> public orientation of the Usenet...

Are *you* willing to do the registration paperwork and overhead for free?
If not, please shut up about this.  Almost every successful user-founded
organization (e.g. Usenix) goes through the stage of discovering that the
whole thing has just gotten too big to be free any more, because there are
too many real-money costs and the volunteer labor is about to quit because
it's overworked and there is no end in sight.  And there are always hotheads
who scream bloody murder because something that they've been getting for
free, and are convinced they have a *right* to, all of a sudden starts to
cost money.  If it's not worth anything to you, don't pay.  If it is worth
something to you, what's the problem with paying a nominal fee for it?
"Public orientation" doesn't mean "free lunch"; look at your tax return.

> ... We could do perfectly well by eliminating
> the whole concept of backbone sites.  If every site were to have
> a fanout of three, say, we would never need sites that have a fanout
> of 50 or more...

[Sounds of bitter laughter.]  You have a peculiar notion of how the backbone
functions.  With the exception of a couple of oddballs like ihnp4, nobody
has fanouts of 50+; with B news, no reasonable machine could handle that.
Utzoo, for example, has a fanout of about 6.  The reason why we are on the
backbone is not the fanout but the Long Distance bills we pay.  There is
only so much that can be done by finding intermediate sites so the news
moves in short hops rather than long ones.  (Especially since this will
often drive total bills up, since call cost is a non-linear function of
distance.)  News is increasingly flowing by non-phone paths like X.25, but
that just changes the concentration points rather than eliminating them.
There will always be sites that are much better equipped for long-haul
communications than others.

> ... (my biggest disappointment is
> that the usenet community just sits back and lets this all happen...)

If you are willing to do something about it, start doing so.  The Network
Police aren't going to come and seize your modems if you try to build an
alternative to the current backbone.  (In fact, if you really pull it off,
most of the backbone admins will give up their current roles with shrieks
of delight.)  Go ahead.  You'll find it's easier said than done.

One of the biggest curses of being a backbone administrator is all those
wonderful people who have Nifty Ideas about how the network could run better,
but want somebody else -- with a strong hint it should be *me* -- to do
something about implementing them.  For quite a while now, my answer has
been "I'm burned out on hacking the net; it already causes me ample grief;
if *you* want things fixed that badly, *you* fix them".  If I wasn't so
familiar with the pattern, it would be a source of constant amusement to
see how few of the complainers are willing to put in the long, hard hours
needed to make their ideas fly.
-- 
Legalize			Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
freedom!			{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry