Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!oberon!skat.usc.edu!blarson
From: blarson@skat.usc.edu (Bob Larson)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: A counter-example for those who would eliminate PC binaries
Message-ID: <10328@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 2 Jul 88 19:09:39 GMT
References: <264@octopus.UUCP> <3302@s.cc.purdue.edu> <1988Jul1.043049.2418@ziebmef.uucp>
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Reply-To: blarson@skat.usc.edu (Bob Larson)
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In article <1988Jul1.043049.2418@ziebmef.uucp> becker@ziebmef.UUCP (Bruce Becker) writes:
> BitNet, which send out descriptions
>	of available binaries (source, documents, etc), and issues a pointer
>	to a thing called a "listserver" - this device (among other things)
>	will mail the requested file(s) to the requestor who sends a
>	standardized form to it... this is all automatic, and requires no
>	human intervention once the files are made known to the server
>	in an appropriate manner.
>
>	It seems to me that this uses far less net bandwidth than the
>	broadcasting method, and serves the community equally well -

[I'm not a bitnet expert.  This is based on what I have heard about
bitnet, and may be incorrect.]

This is much better for things that only a few people want.  It is
much worse for things that many people want.  Of course, what bitnet
often does is broadcast to multiple servers who keep the files.  The
load on the servers (and their conections) is still much greater than
the usenet technique.  (Part of the bitnet load could be relieved if
it had a way to send a file to multiple requestors and duplicating at
the node where the paths diverge.  Uucp mail has this, but it is not
usually configured.)
-- 
Bob Larson	Arpa: Blarson@Ecla.Usc.Edu	blarson@skat.usc.edu
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