Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!grapevine!koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com
From: koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: USENET -> GEnie uplink now working
Message-ID: <34999@grapevine.uucp>
Date: 21 Dec 89 17:55:00 GMT
References: <15097@well.UUCP> <935@crash.cts.com> <1120891450065830@thelake.UUCP>
Sender: news@grapevine.uucp
Reply-To: koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm)
Organization: Sun Microsystems Federal, Milpitas, CA
Lines: 30

In article <1120891450065830@thelake.UUCP> thelake!steve@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu writes:
>Is it that GEnie charges for access to the data? That standard would
>equally condemn WELL, Portal and even Crash Timesharing...

No, it's that GEnie doesn't let its users contribute back to the net.  GEnie
does NOT have that in common with WELL and Portal.  The net is as successful
as it is because it's a two-way street.

Of course, once GEnie gets mail access to the outside world, the problem will
go away, as its users will be able to post to the net using a backbone site.
And as someone else mentioned, they'll be able to get digestified versions of
comp.sys.atari.st, as many BITNET users do now, so the whole issue will be moot.

I don't see why folks think GEnie is so concerned about its messages slipping
into the outside world.  I mean, Portal gives full access to the net and still
manages to turn a tidy profit.  Certainly, I'm not suggesting that all the
GEnie discussions should be broadcast to the world, but I don't see a problem
with letting its users specify the equivalent of USENET's "Distribution:"
line to control how far the messages go.

(I suppose they could be worried about people not subscribing to GEnie if
they can get the discussions for free.  Frankly, I think most of GEnie's
for-pay discussions pale in comparison to the net's free ones, so any such
problem should already exist.  And as for software, I'll take the sources/
binaries groups any day...)

---
"                                                  !" - Marcel Marceau
Steven Grimm		Moderator, comp.{sources,binaries}.atari.st
koreth@ebay.sun.com	...!sun!ebay!koreth