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From: fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Connection to Compuserve?
Message-ID: <18371@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 17-Apr-87 04:52:24 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.18371
Posted: Fri Apr 17 04:52:24 1987
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In the referenced article, Matthew Nelson <nelsn@houxj.UUCP> writes:
>
>Is there a way to send from UUCP (or from any other net which
>connects to UUCP) to Compuserve?
>Are there any other commercial BBoard operations which have
>connections/access to the net?

To the best of my knowledge, the only commercial computer conferencing
systems that connect to the USENET and UUCP networks are

	The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL), Sausalito, CA
	Portal Communications Corp., Cupertino, CA

The major ones (CompuServe, The Source, BIX, GEnie, etc.) either don't
know we exist, or don't want to connect to us. I poked a marketroid
from BIX about this at the West Coast Computer Faire last month, and
got what appears to be the standard response: they don't want to talk
to us, 'cause they can't figure out how to charge for it, or what to
do about Email and netnews access. BIX copyrights all the materials
that the users submit to it, and will not allow redistribution.

Note, however, that The Source was recently sold by Reader's Digest to
someone else (I have forgotten who bought it at the moment), and with
the potential change of management that this brings, perhaps they can
be persuaded to join the bigger world out here...

	Erik E. Fair	ucbvax!fair	fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu