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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix,news.groups
Subject: Re: Request for special USENIX Meeting
Message-ID: <7871@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 4-Apr-87 20:47:39 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.7871
Posted: Sat Apr  4 20:47:39 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Apr-87 20:47:39 EST
References: <1486@hplabsc.UUCP> <491@cognos.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 35

> I agree with Taylor's suggestion that USENIX should have a special
> meeting for discussing the whole direction of usenet. To allow maximum
> participation from the members, it should be held as part of the summer
> conference this year.

There is such a meeting at *every* Usenix conference these days -- the
Usenet BOF.  It is big and well-attended.  If you are thinking of something
that would have official status with the Usenix Association, remember that
Usenet (despite the similarity in name) has nothing to do with Usenix.  The
only connection is that many people are involved in both, and as a result
of this, Usenix has been mildly interested in supporting experimental work
aimed at improving the network used by many of its members.

Bear in mind, also, when talking about mass meetings, that there is no
hope of such a large gathering of such opinionated people coming to a real
decision in any finite time.  An airing of views is the best that can
be hoped for.

> As you can see, any shakeup of the usenet community resulting in
> desertion of a small percentage of the sites could cause major segments
> of the net to loose their connections.

Actually the network is a *bit* more robust than your comments suggest.
The Toronto-Ottawa area could probably survive the desertion of utzoo or
the failure of a Toronto-Ottawa link, although there would be monumental
chaos for a little while.  Still, the point is well taken.

Remember that one motive for Stargate is that our current structure cannot
possibly accommodate continuing and seemingly unstoppable growth forever.
Usenet will change or die; there is no third possibility.  I doubt that any
of the current backbone sites could survive another tenfold increase in
traffic -- in fact it's amazing that things have held together this long.
-- 
"We must choose: the stars or	Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
the dust.  Which shall it be?"	{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry