Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!ukma!rutgers!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Cabal
Keywords: newgroup, vote, control
Message-ID: <28486@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 6 Apr 89 16:26:04 GMT
References: <4873@xyzzy.UUCP> <28368@apple.Apple.COM> <605@peritek.UUCP>
Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps
Lines: 36

>True, site admins maintain the news system on their machines, but in most
>cases, they probably do not pay the bills (do you pay the bills at Apple?
>or does somebody in some other department?).

That's a good question. I'm not involved in the administration of the news
machine at Apple at all, so by my own definitions of who should and
shouldn't be part of the cabal, I wouldn't be...

>If Apple is a publicly held company (I am not sure), it has share holders
>who aren't even employees, who have a say in how the money should get
>spent.

You're nitpicking to a bit. Yes, this is all true, however the spending
power is delegated down the management chain to a certain level, and above
that level management doesn't care how the money is spent as long as the
justifications are there and the budget isn't exceeded. Joyn Sculley, for
instance, doesn't care (or even know) if I buy a hard disk for my IIx --
it's up to my manager to approve it and make sure the money exists in the
budget. 

We're not talking about theoretical "who's in charge" things -- we're
talking about the real-world of operational responsibility. The sysadmin is
the person who has operational responsibility for USENET, and either they
(or their manager) have the budgetary responsibility. It's not who signs the
check -- it's whose budget the check is allocated to.




Chuq Von Rospach       -*-      Editor,OtherRealms      -*-      Member SFWA
chuq@apple.com  -*-  CI$: 73317,635  -*-  Delphi: CHUQ  -*-  Applelink: CHUQ
      [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.]

USENET: N. A self-replicating phage engineered by the phone company to cause
computers to spend large amounts of their owners budget on modem charges.