Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!microsoft!w-colinp From: w-colinp@microsoft.UUCP (Colin Plumb) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Some questions about USENET and commercial sites Message-ID: <25@microsoft.UUCP> Date: 22 Mar 89 13:45:30 GMT References: <7105@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <2958@looking.UUCP> <822@telly.UUCP> <1989Mar19.053739.6478@utzoo.uucp> <307@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US> Reply-To: w-colinp@microsoft.uucp (Colin Plumb) Distribution: na Organization: very little Lines: 99 Sigh.. this is wierd. Re: the r.h.f debate (the one about the Genie gateway, not the one about compilation copyrights or JEDR or any others I mat have missed), the fact that Genie is picling up r.h.f is not really a cause for flaming. They could do it, quietly, one day, to any newsgroup. Disconnecting them from the net against their opposition could be tricky if they set up multiple links and don't actively offend. This sort of thing would be comparable to Portal or some such... a pay-by-use service is making its users pay per use of netnews. Because Genie charges a lot more than Portal, people would probably get excited. Nonetheless, it wouldn't hurt netnews. How could it? So netnews goes one more place. Sites join all the time. So they manage to dupe a lot of people out of money? I still get netnews for the price of my hardware and phone bills, as always. I can still talk to everyone I used to be able to. No loss to me. I can't see any way this can lead to the imminent demose of the net. If they start trying to claim copyright over netnews, it would be unbelievably stupid, impossible to do, and would scare all their feeds into disconnecting. No more news, no more copyright. End of problem. If they fed material back into netnews, the same thing applies, although some harm could come if they have a lot of idiots flooding the net with garbage. This is not a new problem. This tapping could be done in a very fascist way, and still not change the netnews we all see. So I can't imagine it could suddenly make the groups they gateway "commercial" in the eyes of DARPA, the Internet, or anyone else. However, some people object to this sort of thing, and, as Brad points out, Genie can't do it with r.h.f because Brad claims his compilation copyright. Personally, I'd prefer he didn't bother, and *if there was trouble* add one. So someone he dislikes gets a few weeks of r.h.f. No big deal, really, and he'd have net.opinion on his side. The draft looks amazingly good when there's an unfriendly army on the way... But anyway, Brad intends to use his control to ensure that Genie users' contributions get to usenet for all of us to enjoy. And, as always, it doesn't cost us more than spool space. More jokes to choose from means better jokes, is good for me. Hooray! The objection people seem to have is that brad is taking their material (sometimes from rec.humor, without their knowledge), claiming some control over it (this was the old debate the current one linked up to) and getting paid by Genie for reposting it. This business of my joke, you get the money seems to be the greatest point of dissention. And, yeah, I'm not too sure about it myself. I prefer the comp.sources.unix and comp.dcom.telecom philosophies myself. But I can live with less saintly attitudes. AND, I'm willing to trust Brad. If something nasty happens, it leaves no more than a bad taste in my mouth, and I can axe rec.humor.funny, badmouth Brad, and write muck-raking letters to the K-W Record. If it goes well, great! I don't see any way whatsoever that giving it a trial will cause more harm to the net than the congenstion on this issue already has. Can Genie make me pay for the net? No. Can Genie in any way obstruct my current net access? They could flood the net with garbage, or they could, over the years, make lots of connections and then drop them all overnight, causing great net.confusion for some months, but this is the absolute worst they can do. If they threaten legal action of any sort, I don't doubt all their feeds will axe them instantly. What is this? I feed you, and you threaten to sue me? Go play by yourself! So I just can't manage to get excited about it. The existence of Brad's compilation copyright in the first place, I can sort of worry about. Especially the rec.humor culls. But a Genie gateway, no. Anyway... dattier@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US (David W. Tamkin) wrote: > | I believe Brad was quite explicit that the gatewaying envisioned would > | be bidirectional. > > It must be two weeks now since I posted the same question: will it really be > bidirectional, and what, if anything, does Brad Templeton have IN WRITING > from GEnie or BIX to promise that? I dunno. In reality, it doesn't matter. If Genie tries to stop him, he'll drop Genie. So he loses a few potential jokes. Big deal. > I find it less than easy to believe that the pay-by-the-minute systems will > open their offerings to a large readership who won't be paying them and in > fact will shell money out to the very person who is giving the goods away. Well, they know Brad will claim his own compilation copyright on r.h.f, so they must be happy already. To repeat: I wouldn't worry about it. If it turns out that Brad suddenly transforms into some horrible monster, you'll have no problems getting r.h.f rmgroup'd. But for now, think: what is the worst that could possibly happen in the month or so it would take between the start of the bad behaviour and the net-wide rmgroup? All I can see is Genie freeloading a lot and being snotty about reverse traffic. For 30 days or so. Is this disaster? -- -Colin (uunet!microsoft!w-colinp) "Don't listen to me. I never do." - The Doctor