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From: csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst)
Newsgroups: news.groups,ba.news.config,news.admin
Subject: Re: Internet rules (was: map question)
Message-ID: <101839@pyramid.pyramid.com>
Date: 13 Feb 90 04:50:35 GMT
References: <267@hplabs.HPL.HP.COM> <101264@pyramid.pyramid.com> <1990Feb8.012051.7798@vicom.com> <4440@fernwood.MPK.CA.US> <1990Feb11.225848.23276@vicom.com> <10810@saturn.ADS.COM>
Reply-To: csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst)
Followup-To: news.admin
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 23

There is nothing new here. It has long been known by Usenet/Internet old hands
that USENET crosses over the line of what types of traffic are supposed to be
passed over the research Internets. The same was and is true of many of the
Internet mailing lists, many of which now use Netnews and NNTP as a transport
protocol.

Back when NNTP was brand new (three, four years ago?), there was a lot of
concern about this. It was generally accepted that some day, in the indefinite
future, USENET would lose its privilege of running across the research Inter-
nets, perhaps very soon. Not only hasn't that happened, but if anything USENET
is more accepted now than then. There was a lot of concern that DARPA, CSNet,
and other "officials" allowed USENET traffic simply because they didn't know
what it was. When we were considering joining CSNet, I asked them about USENET
traffic. They understood exactly what I meant, and had no objections at all.

For the paranoid types, the solution is commercial internets, instead of re-
search. Nysernet is offering a commercial IP network around New York, and the
UUNet AlterNet service is now coming on line. Expect others in the future.

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