From: ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis)
Subject: Re: A Paper on the Social Forces Behind the Development of Usenet
Followup-To: news.misc,alt.culture.usenet
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation Tech Central
	<1992Dec12.131739.10972@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 20:21:55 GMT

[cleaning up the followups]
LM> == Larry Mulcahy <lmulcahy@nyx.cs.du.edu>

*Very* good article.  You were doing REALLY REALLY well, up to this point:

 LM> There is another consideration, the non-commercial status of Internet.

The non-commercial status of *parts of* the Internet, in particular the
NSFNET-funded backbone, the NASA and DoE and DoD networks, and some
international links.  The CIX member networks and networks which have
commercial agreements with ANS for use of the T3 backbone do not have such
a "non-commercial" use policy.

 LM> Anyone who purchased an Internet hookup, then used it to
 LM> flood the Usenet newsgroups with advertizing could expect their
 LM> right to continue to have an Internet hookup challenged.

No, but they would get massively flamed, and probably start having a harder
time finding feed sites.  Eventually people would start filtering out all
news from that site.

 LM> If the amount of commercial traffic in Usenet were to greatly
 LM> increase, it is theoretically possible that Usenet news could be
 LM> banned from Internet.

Parts of the Internet, yes.

This is true, but how do you think they get funding for backbone upgrades?
Partially by saturating the backbone...

 LM> There is always a cost involved in moving the news, if only tying up
 LM> hundreds of megabytes of disk space and hours of high speed modem time
 LM> each day.

Or some portion of your Internet connection, if you use NNTP or
UUCP-over-TCP to get your news with.

 LM> Most sites don't make anything off of it, so this is the root of the
 LM> aversion to commercial traffic: the unwillingness of both commercial
 LM> and individual sites to pay these costs to promote some narrow
 LM> business interest.

Very true.  If people see some value in a posting, they'll accept it; if
they think it was a waste, they'll flame it.

[...]
 LM> Some threats to Usenet:

 LM> I am uneasy about the government funding of Internet.

Not my connection; many connections are on the commercial IP networks now.
If the NSFNET backbone were closed to NNTP traffic, there would be a
reshuffling, and a number of regional networks would sign agreements with
ANS, the CIX, or both.  And news would flow again.

 LM> [...]  What will happen as the uncontrollable Usenet posters flood
 LM> Fidonet echos with off-topic messages?  Even if excommunication
 LM> remains impossible in Usenet for technical reasons, could the desire
 LM> for peaceful coexistence lead to a chilling effect on Usenet speech?

Well, judging by what happened with 'alt.bbs.allsysop', the Fidonet side
will cut the gateway when they get sick of the USENET "anarchists" posting
to "their" forum.  And most of the USENET side will say "good riddance."

Again, a good posting, modulo the (common) misconception that the Internet
is a monolithic, non-commercial, government-funded entity.
--
Christopher K. Davis      | ``Usenet seems to run much like the Kif (or,
<ckd@eff.org>   EFF #14   |   for the TV generation, Klingon) high command.
System Administrator, EFF |   Whoever takes action and can be heard wins.''
+1 617 864 0665  [CKD1]   |   --Peter da Silva <peter@ferranti.com>
Newsgroups: comp.misc