Path: utzoo!mnetor!geac!wcm
From: wcm@geac.com (W Christopher Martin)
Newsgroups: tor.news
Subject: Re: bit.* and list.* news hierarchies
Message-ID: <1990Jan7.032701.17438@geac.com>
Date: 7 Jan 90 03:27:01 GMT
References: <1990Jan5.195044.6085@geac.com> <1812@becker.UUCP> <90Jan6.091415est.2181@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: wcm@geac.com (W Christopher Martin)
Distribution: tor
Organization: Geac Computer Corporation
Lines: 52

In article <90Jan6.091415est.2181@neat.cs.toronto.edu> lamy@cs.utoronto.ca (Jean-Francois Lamy) writes:
>We could let the bit.* groups out (the volume is not that
>high), but since we only feed torsqnt the other sites on campus that feed
>local sites would have to accept and redistribute bit.* in the first place.

We currently have a mail link with torsqnt.  I'll contact them to see
if some arrangement can be made for them to pass on these groups,
assuming jarvis.csri.toronto.edu will feed them.

>I've included the list of bit.* and list.* newsgroups at the end, so people
>can make up their minds on how much interest there is (remember that leaking
>bit.* is easy, and the list.* newsgroups would require thinking about it)

Thanks for the list.  Geac is definitely interested in obtaining as many
of these groups as you are willing to distribute.  As always, we'll pass
them along to any site to which we currently feed news.

>bdb@becker.UUCP (Bruce Becker) writes:
>
>>	You can inject mailing lists directly into
>>	news yourself. Just subscribe to the list
>>	using a suitable alias, and in your "/usr/lib/aliases"
>
>Remember that the Internet and Bitnet traffic to the US still travel on a
>single 56Kbps link (38.4Kbps for the Internet side) and that it is very
>congested.  Given that the articles are already making it up north, and until
>which time we can swim in network bandwidth (not for the foreseeable future),
>it makes more sense to get the articles from a source North of the border.

That was exactly the reason I posted my original query.  I had seen the
recent announcement in comp.archives about the availabilty of the
various Bitnet mailing lists, and had considered subscribing to several.
I thought it was ridiculous to subscribe if the messages were already
getting to Toronto, especially if someone was already gatewaying them
into USENET-style newsgroups.  Since I knew almost nothing about the
bit.* and list.* hierarchies, I intentionally kept my query short
to avoid spreading disinformation in case my assumptions about those
groups were wrong.  Jean-Francois has confirmed what I had guessed.

>In particular, vm.utcs.utoronto.ca seems to get most of the Bitnet listserv
>stuff on their own listserv, so that would be a preferred source for getting
>bitnet lists (assuming we don't get the bit.listserv groups out).

Assuming that jarvis.csri.toronto.edu and torsqnt agree to start
exchanging the bit.* groups, it would be still advantageous to have a
redundant link from the UofT to the outside world.  Are there other
UofT sites with external links (eg. utzoo) that would be willing
to volunteer?

wcm
-- 
W. Christopher Martin  wcm@geac.com or {uunet!jtsv16,utgpu,yunexus}!geac!wcm