Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!bbn.com!rsalz
From: rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Request for clarification
Message-ID: <759@fig.bbn.com>
Date: 23 May 88 19:26:25 GMT
References: <560@n8emr.UUCP>
Organization: BBN Laboratories Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 33

>I am curious about an attitude I keep seeing around the net recently.
>I keep seeing the concept of "well, why dont you just go use a local
>BBS'?

Assuming the question isn't rhetorical...

When people say "go use a local BBS" they typically mean go find some
IBM-PC-type machine running a FIDO-type BBS, which has lots of software
for you to download, at your expense.  This is quite different from the
Usenet scheme, where binaries are broadcast to thousands of sites, in
the hope that enough people find it worthwhile to justify the total
aggregate cost in phone money, CPU time, and disk space.

Another reason why people say "go use a BBS" is that the PC-based BBS's
seem to generally have their act together vis-a-vis distributing and
making binaries available, while this has never been a major priority
for the hundred of people who've "worked on" Usenet.  (Excuse the
awkward terminology; I'm trying to avoid the narrow, loaded, terms of
moderator, backbone, or "net.god".)

Another common reason is that PC-based BBS's generally keep things
around forever, while Usenet articles are (mostly) transitory.
People often get particularly upset seeing countless repostings of
something that came out last season, or if because some people missed
the second part of a 20-part Hypercard Stack.

I think the primary difference is one of orientation; many people believe
Usenet is "free", while BBS's cost money.  Such folks are short-sighted,
at best, and damn selfish at worst:  they are looking no further than their
own phone bill.  Go subscribe to Compu-Serve.
	/rich $alz
-- 
Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net.