[2565] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
access to world.std.com from the Univ of Michigan
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Mon Mar 16 20:09:34 1992
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 92 20:05:36 -0500
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: jrr@concert.net
Cc: SEAN@SDG.DRA.COM, alison@oar.net, com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Joe Ragland's message of Mon, 16 Mar 92 18:41:02 -0500 <9203162341.AA01159@scamp.concert.net>
>From: Joe Ragland <jrr@concert.net>
>Somehow I must be missing something. Just why do I need to get
>to world.std.com?
Personally, you probably don't.
But here's a short list of why people commonly complain about our AUP
limitations:
1. Access to the Online Book Initiative (a collection of about 200MB
of freely redistributable online texts ranging from novels and poetry
to standards documents and dictionaries.) I get a few frustrated
complaints about this from "out there" per day.
2. Access to other files (archives, sources) we make available.
Oftentimes these are files put up by our customers in collaborative
efforts with people on "the other side", only to find out that won't
work.
3. Access to resources such as Quantum Books' catalog (a first-class
technical book store near MIT.) They will answer questions via e-mail
and take orders etc.
4. Clarinet UPI news and similar services (we will be adding USA Today
on-line soon and I am investigating an offer to put The St Petersburg
News online, that's the one in Russia.)
5. A very complete (almost 3,000 groups, 2989 to be precise) netnews
feed. Many sites due to policy or resource limitations curtail large
portions of USENET to their sites. Some don't carry it at all or
restrict access to portions of their community who could otherwise
telnet here and get this, thus resolving, for a few dollars a month,
these conflicts with administrative policies.
6. We will carry anonymous (to the public) accounts where many sites
will not. For example, a person who wishes to be involved in a gay
discussion group but would rather not be associated with that activity
to his or her co-workers. We can and certainly do support that type of
access so long as it is done responsibly.
7. People on the road, particularly if they're in the Boston area, and
need access to the net. We are far cheaper than long-distance dialing
(about an order of magnitude cheaper.) That's a double-billing issue,
right now a bona-fide contractor or researcher who cannot arrange a
guest account but cannot get through via our system for about $1/hr no
doubt just gives up and charges the $10/hr phone fees to their
contract. Note that such people might be in this situation for months
at a time. Right now, for example, we have a woman who is doing some
sort of work for a professor at Dartmouth (she's located in Boston),
it's our system that's making that relationship possible. I am sure
there are a dozen such things going on, and another few dozen that
were frustrated.
I could go on, but like I said, that's the short list that pops right
to mind.
-Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die | bzs@world.std.com | uunet!world!bzs
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