Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!killer!vector!rpp386!jfh
From: jfh@rpp386.UUCP (John F. Haugh II)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: The death of USENET
Summary: Now that we've killed ihnp4, let's try
	 killing the rest of the net.
Message-ID: <2645@rpp386.UUCP>
Date: 11 Jun 88 15:08:03 GMT
References: <7475@swan.ulowell.edu>
Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.UUCP (The Beach Bum)
Followup-To: news.admin
Organization: Big "D" Home for Wayward Hackers
Lines: 34

In article <7475@swan.ulowell.edu> boneill@hawk.ulowell.edu (SoftXc Coordinator) writes:
>I will be extending my offer of sending PICNIX parts to people until the
>20th. Instructions are below.
>
>One person (tellabs5!lash) I was unable to send to. If this person could
>contact me, I'll try to work something out.

Yesterday AT&T announced that ihnp4, cbosgd and att would be severing all
outside links and discontinuing third party mail.  ihnp4 has been around
since I first started using the net 6 or 7 years ago, I do not welcome
it's passing any more than I welcomed the divestiture.  But with abuses
such as these, I wonder why AT&T provided those machines free of charge
for the net for all of these years.

With the decision of AT&T to cease being such a major player in the
USENET arena I wonder how far DEC, IBM and Sun can be behind.  It is
time we lined up to receive our punishment for the excesses of the past
5 or 10 years.  And in the dieing moments of USENET, as the last
insignificant company announces that it too will no longer handle third
party mail [ but will willingly SELL you such a service ], there will be
this posting

Subject: PICNIX parts available by mail

and people will still be sending in those requests, having long since
forgotten that in it's hayday, USENET could still beat the USMAIL by
several days.

USENET has been mortally wounded with the passing of ihnp4.  From where
I am sitting the prognosis is not good.  How many hundreds or thousands
of systems will now be stranded?  And how long before the increased
pressure of cummulative cruft on the remaining sites forces those machines
to also pass by the wayside?

- John.