Path: utzoo!utgpu!BITNIC!FUTURE-L Date: Wed, 28 Feb 90 07:59:53 EST Reply-To: BITNET Futures List Sender: BITNET Futures List From: "Steven N. Goldstein--Ph 202-357-9717" Subject: Re: The fall of Bitnet Comments: To: BITNET Futures List Comments: cc: Multiple recipients of list FUTURE-L To: UofToronto LAN redistribution References: Your message of Tue, Message-ID: <90Feb28.080928est.57382@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> Newsgroups: list.future-l Distribution: ut Approved: devnull@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu Interesting dialogs going on here . . . Can you imagine a networking community in which system operators cooperate and share networking resources among DECNET, TCP/IP, NJE, and plain-old X.25, being pragmatic in the interests of their user communities? Would you believe that the leader/spokesman for the IP-group is the HEPnet manager (HEPnet in the States being a closed DECNET community)? Where is this place? Western Europe! Ip-ers, EARN-folk, HEPnet-ers and X.400 afficionados team up to make things work. Protocol wars? "Harumph, no!" they claim--though the bete noir is the subsidized OSI community that is seen pushing solutions that the operational folk do not want down their throats with the force of the subsidies strengthening the hands of the pushers. But, even that "antagonism" seems to be yielding to the diplomacy of the combined communities. Pragmatism is spreading! Concentrations of dogmatism are becoming isolated islands. It is a truly exciting scene. So, keep the faith. Do not give up hope. Protocol bigotry may yield to pragmatism here in the States, too. One small item...I note that nobody seems to have mentioned anonymous File Transfer Protocol in which one "puts" a file into the host of the recipient. Granted, it is a jury-rig compared to the BITNET capability (for instance, the target machine has to permit anonymous FTP, and the recipient has to know that there is a file there to be fetched--requires aonther "go fetch" message by e-mail, phone, etc.--AND the sender has to know the identity of the CORRECT target machine, since the machines on which people actually do their work are often hidden behind a higher level corporate/campus domain name in their e-mail addresses). jBut, I think that the factious fallout of the "Which is better?" debates fly in the face of pragmatic solutions. May I repeat an earlier sentiment sent to the list: my normal mode of communicating is vie [Internet] e-mail...hours per day. But, I am not above sending a FAX when that is the best way to do business, nor FEDEX, nor even a phone call if needed to do the job. Similar diversity in the computer communications world, e.g., Internet, BITNETs of the world, DECnets of the world, and commercial e-mail systems makes it possible for me to reach a wider community of correspondents, and I hope that that scope is never diminished. The protocols, gateway traversals, etc., are of less interest to me than the impact on my ability to communicate. Thanks--this turned out to be 3 x longer than I had intended. Steve G.