[265] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: pointless bickering
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John S. Quarterman)
Sun Mar 3 10:40:42 1991
From: John S. Quarterman <jsq@tic.com>
To: Edward Vielmetti <emv@ox.com>
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, jsq@tic.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of Sat, 02 Mar 91 15:33:10 -0500.
Date: Sun, 03 Mar 91 09:09:07 -0600
>you don't know how annoying it is to have someone on a mailing list
>say "don't talk about quipu here, that's for the quipu list" and to
>realize that you don't get the quipu list and don't know how to get it.
That's a good example of what LISTSERV does that Internet mailing lists
don't. LISTSERV also allows people to subscribe and unsubscribe automatically,
does automatic archiving and retrieval by mail, and distributes itself
among several servers that keep themselves in synch.
There is netnews on BITNET, and especially on BITNET-II. Yet people
on BITNET still prefer LISTSERV for small, controlled discussions.
Perhaps it would be worth examining why.
If it turns out that the reason really has something to do with
additional functionality, perhaps someone who is going to the upcoming
IETF meeting would be interested in seeing if there is an appropriate
working group for a few LISTSERV RFCs. Perhaps some company that's
interested in spreading Internet services would be interested in doing
a UNIX implementation (maybe leaving out a few LISTSERV bogosities
like the way it doesn't put the list address in the To: or Cc: headers).
>can we pull the listserv vs. netnews discussion off somewhere else?
>i don't see that it's relevant to commercialization or privatization
>of the internet.
If the Internet doesn't provide the services people want, people won't
use the Internet. That's the relevance.
However, I think postings from various people have made what's unusual
about LISTSERV and how that's relevant to com-priv clear enough. I don't
think I have anything more to say about it.
John
--
John S. Quarterman
Texas Internet Consulting jsq@tic.com tel: +1-512-320-9031
701 Brazos, Suite 500 uunet!longway!jsq fax: +1-512-320-5821
Austin, TX 78701
