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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!topaz.rutgers.edu!brandx.rutgers.edu!webber
From: webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Of Backbonisms and Misreading RFCs.
Message-ID: <319@brandx.rutgers.edu>
Date: Sat, 8-Aug-87 22:22:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: brandx.319
Posted: Sat Aug  8 22:22:32 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Aug-87 13:01:26 EDT
References: <267@brandx.UUCP> <7200004@iaoobelix.UUCP> <289@brandx.rutgers.edu> <4091@ncoast.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 62
Summary: closing in on understanding

In article <4091@ncoast.UUCP>, allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes:
> As quoted from <13647@topaz.rutgers.edu> by webber@topaz.rutgers.edu (Webber):
> +---------------
> | I take it that any net that transmits messages as boring as ibm pc
> | binaries has no right to complain about the quality of the content of
> | any other messages.  You know, I always find it interesting that
> | everyone wants everyone else to forward everything so that they can
> | pick and chose the parts that interest just them.
> +---------------
> 
> Why do I detect in this paragraph a rich and fruity smell, as of skunk?

Who knows?  Have you cleaned your keyboard recently?

> Bob, you can't have it both ways (i.e. "don't allow binaries on any net I'm
> on, but you damned better accept anything I submit").  Your article smacks
> of hypocrisy.

I never said `` don't allow binaries on the net ''.  Doubtless you
have been hanging around the backbone so long that you think everyone
wishes to destroy anything that doesn't please them.  I am a more
tolerant sort.  I have proposed (elsewhere) to make the binary groups
pointless by creating a public domain C compiler.

> ... to Bob Webber not wanting to carry comp.binaries.ibm.pc; I object to
> Bob Webber trying to force people who WANT it _not_ to carry it.

Then you object to a nonexistant thing.

> ...binaries) carry.  Thank you for enlightening us, O Great One!

Well, obviously I have failed to enlighten you.  Sigh.

> I haven't got the RFC's; I suppose someone who can't ftp something from
> another machine is subhuman.  Don't bother replying to this, as your
> statement above contains the assumption that I have access to every RFC,

No.  My statement assumed that anyone who would spout off about Internet
being an SRI-NIC term exclusively would at least have gone to the
effort to have consulted reasonable sources.  RFC's can be distributed
via many media other than ftp packets (as the rest of your note indicated).

> However, I have a copy of RFC822 here, from the time it was posted to the
> Usenet.  The Preface makes it clear that the Internet is defined as the DoD
> ARPA network; the terms are used interchangeably.  This, of course, is not
> enough, simply because it doesn't support Mr. Webber's claim.

Wrong.  RFC 822 is entitled: Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet
Text Messages.  It superceeds RFC 773 entitled: Standard for the Format
of ARPA Network Text Messages.  It is clear from the preface that the
usage of the term Internet is merely to indicate that ARPA mail regularly
goes through networks other than the ARPA Network.  ARPA in no way claimed
title to the term Internet in this RFC than they claimed title to the term
Network in RFC 773.  

So if this is the basis for your assumption that Internet is an ARPA
term exclusively, then I am singularly unimpressed and will continue
to use it for what was once called WorldNet.  Is there any other
arpaphile that thinks they can find an RFC that defends the notion
that Internet applies only to ARPA?

------- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!webber)