Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!giza.cis.ohio-state.edu!karl From: karl@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) Newsgroups: news.misc Subject: Re: In Moderation: A Moderator's Response Message-ID: Date: 12 Jun 89 15:19:09 GMT References: <41197@bbn.COM> <12113@well.UUCP> <41207@bbn.COM> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Organization: Ohio State Computer Science Lines: 43 In-reply-to: cosell@bbn.com's message of 10 Jun 89 13:32:51 GMT cosell@bbn.com writes: I would argue that the only thing I'm sure I can make an AIRTIGHT case for is to "copy" my work as part of the generally accepted machinery of distributing *usenet*. Once you take my work OUT of usenet... I suggest that you are asking the wrong question. The right question will at the very least revolve around, "What is Usenet, that one can define its `generally accepted machinery,' as well as what constitutes `within' and `without' it?" Hypothesize an "unusual" feed. Imagine that I feed them using the classic essential "generally accepted machinery" of my news software including, e.g., [ir]news, spool areas, sys & active files, and sendbatch with appropriate cron-initiated controlling scripts. They even accept the feed with a black-box re-implementation of UUCP, let's say. But the "rnews" program running on their OmniBlotchWorks 32x bears no relation whatever to what we (presumed UNIX users, for the sake of an audience definition) are used to, and instead slices the incoming news batch into its articles in some different way and posts the articles around some other, radically different article- dissemination system. Have I left behind the "generally accepted machinery?" Of course not. Has the feed recipient? I doubt it - there is no such thing as "generally accepted machinery." When NNTP was new, it wasn't generally accepted, but later gained wide acceptance. When VN was new... When RN was new... When Gnews was new... When GNUS was new... When ANU-News was new... Right now, C-News is new (first real release, anyway)... Rich Salz says there's YARN (Yet Another Reader of News) in the comp.sources.unix queue, called NN... [Please keep in mind that this is nothing but a hypothetical case - I know of no one doing such things.] I submit the hypothesis that, for purposes of restricting what can and cannot be fed, "the Usenet" does not exist, and cannot be made to exist. That is, "the Usenet" cannot be defined - there are too many hooks into the system, too many different ways of looking at the same thing, too many underlying transport mechanisms, to permit one to create such a definition. --Karl