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From: rsalz@papaya.bbn.com.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.hypertext
Subject: Re: Hypertext Usenet
Message-ID: <234@papaya.bbn.com>
Date: Sun, 8-Nov-87 10:31:56 EST
Article-I.D.: papaya.234
Posted: Sun Nov  8 10:31:56 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 9-Nov-87 06:35:22 EST
References: <3296@hoptoad.uucp> <557@brandx.rutgers.edu>
Reply-To: rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz)
Organization: BBN Laboratories, Cambridge MA
Lines: 37

] Each site archives all its messages on magtape, e.g.  Then others could
] ask them for a copy of that magtape.  "A catalog of sites that are keeping
] archives and what sites they are archiving then becomes our equivalent to
] the library Serials List and the whole system is our ``inter-library loan.''"
Cute idea, but needs more infra-structure.  I could see every junior
hacker sending away to mimsy in order to get the complete words of "Chris
Torek on BSD" -- completely overloading that site with hundreds of
requests, each of which is "reasonable" in and of itself.  As anyone who's
done a non-commercial software distribution can tell you, this kind of
thing rapidly becomes a big hassle.

> ... sat down and designed a candidate database
> setup a month ago, and it may be doable with a year or two of work.

>Hmmm.  I guess we would all be interested in hearing more about your
>design.  But, from what I have heard of the success of the arpa people
>with their  ``named'' distributed database, I would rather try and build a
>central computer big enough to support everyone in the world connected
>simultaneously instead.  First things first, but easy before hard :-)

Ahh, one big machine to serve the world?  You mean like Multics, which was
to serve the entire Boston/Cambridge community?  The problem the
nameserver folks (users and maintainers) are having is that the system is
just not big/fast enough.  Not many people think the basic concept is
broken.  Unless you complete control over growth (does anyone ever have
complete control over growth), you had best lay your groundwork to allow
distributed mechanisms otherwise your system is guaranteed to become
insufficient at some point.

But what about "better" than Usenet hypertext:  Where's Ted Nelson?
Where's the Brown IRIS group?  Doesn't UMichigan have something in the
fire?  What about interactive videodisc?

Comments?
	/r$
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