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From: steve@thelake.UUCP (Steve Yelvington)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: GEnie uplink is shut down..
Message-ID: <1125891803166696@thelake.UUCP>
Date: 26 Dec 89 00:03:16 GMT
References: <15158@well.UUCP> <25357@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: thelake!steve@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu
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In article <25357@cup.portal.com>, Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com
displays some basic misunderstandings that are fueling this whole
bandwidth-wasting discussion. This is an attempt to clear them up for
everybody's sake.

> What I'm surprised that no one has suggested throughout all of this is that
> GEnie just bite the bullet and become a UseNet site.

Even the most vocally antiGEnieans have suggested precisely that.

> Portal has been
> mentioned several times in the discussion, but Portal is a paying member
> of UseNet and has full two-way access.   The way GEnie was doing it was
> by getting in "the backdoor", for free.

Paying member of Usenet? Paying whom? Not me. I may forget my phone number
sometimes, but I wouldn't forget a check from Portal. No siree. It doesn't
work that way. 

Usenet is NOT a physical network. Usenet is NOT a legal entity. Usenet
does NOT have a corporate existence.

To be on the network, you don't have to pass muster with any sort of
screening committee. There isn't one.

You don't buy a license. You don't have to get a node number. Usenet is
not the Internet, nor is it Fidonet, nor is it run by the government or by
universities or even corporations. It's just something that happens, by
consensus: Site A agrees to exchange messages with site B. Site B agrees
to exchange messages with sites C, D and E. If Site A doesn't like Site E
appearing on the network, it can decline to participate in the network. It
has no authority to forbid Site E from joining.

> There would be no "flood" of GEnie material, as only messages specifically
> posted to UseNet (as with Portal) would appear on the newsgroups.

That's up to the site (GEnie).

> However, it would take money to set up as a UseNet site, and it would take
> software to handle the newsgroup feeds.  That would take a bit more selling
> than just offering them something for free.

Usenet software is free. Usenet news standards are quite simple and
well-documented. If I can figure it out, I'm sure it's intelligible to
General Electric, one of the world's largest industrial corporations, and
its data-networking subsidiary (of which GEnie is a minor component).

Everybody, PLEASE, before you get all worked up in a dither and start
flapping your arms, take the time to bone up on the network. Read the
postings in news.announce.newusers. Go to the library and read Harry
Henderson's excellent article on Usenet in the Waite Group's "Tricks of
the Unix Masters." Read news.misc and news.admin for awhile. Do your
homework. Keep the flames in the fireplace.

 -- 

THE FINE PRINT: This message is Copyright 1989 by Steve Yelvington. You
may not read it. Oops! You've already read it? Now you're in deep sh*t.
I'll feed you to my fire-breathing attorney, who will take your car, your
house and (gasp) your computer, then destroy your city and the city of
each of your relatives, and the entire planet Earth and maybe the Milky
Way galaxy, and get a court order to seize Usenet and give it to the
bloodsucking capitalist leeches. (No! Not the leeches!) (Yes! The
leeches!) Also, if you try to post a copyright-restricted response, your
monitor will explode and blow your head off, and you'll get warts on the
palms of your hands. If you believe this, you must send me $1.5 million in
gold and a faster hard drive. Oh, by the way, I own GEnie. I'm just
kidding. Really. Happy New Year!

-- 
   Steve Yelvington at the snow-covered lake in Minnesota
   Reliable UUCP path: ... umn-cs.cs.umn.edu!thelake!steve