Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!sharkey!edsews!uunet!oresoft!news
From: news@oresoft.uu.net (Randy Bush)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Introduction to REC.HUMOR.FUNNY -- Monthly Posting
Message-ID: <611@oresoft.uu.net>
Date: 8 Feb 89 16:20:03 GMT
Reply-To: news@oresoft.uu.net (Randy Bush)
Distribution: na
Organization: Oregon Software, Portland, OR
Lines: 34

patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) writes:
>Fidonet in its early days formed the "International Fidonet Association"
>for the purpose primarily of holding the network address matrix in trust,
>and enforcing network technical standards, etc.

Well ...  It was not really the early days, but the middle, which may have
been half the problem.  Regardless, IFNA was actually formed to keep Ken
Kaplan from taking it in the 1040 (that's personal income taxes to you
furriners on the net:-) when FidoNet started to receive donations.  Holding
of the Fido trademark, NodeList copyright, and development of technical
standards were all add-ons, some of which came considerably later.

It should also be noted that IFNA is essentially failing.  Among the various
attributions of cause, I suspect a natural disinclination on the part of
net.denizens to a central controlling organization, which was how IFNA was
(mis-)conceived (rightly or wrongly).

Compilation copyright of the FidoNet NodeList (the term 'matrix' was a
carefully designed attempt to avoid acknowledging the originators of Fido
and FidoNet, and, as such, is considered a slur) was suggested a year later
(by the author of FSC-0001, the basic FidoNet protocol standards document),
when it was noticed that FidoNet's main single asset was utterly unprotected
from ripoff, and, in fact, someone had already ripped it off once.  I
observe that similar discussion of the uucp and domain maps is occurring.

>I suggest that "Usenet Cooperative Trust, Inc" could serve and protect us

While my philosophical/legal side agrees with you completely, my social
instincts and FidoNet experiences make me wary that this only provides a
focus for flames.  Junk mail and map ripoff may be the lesser evils.

randy
-- 
{mcvax!uunet,tektronix,reed,sun!nosun}!oresoft!news (Randy Bush)