Newsgroups: bit.listserv.lstsrv-l
Date:         Tue, 29 Sep 1992 02:27:34 +0100
Reply-To:     NODMGT-L@UGA.BITNET
From:         Eric Thomas <ERIC@SEARN.BITNET>
Subject:      300k file limit
Comments: To: JBC@BITNIC.BITNET,
              Node management discussion <NODMGT-L@UGA.BITNET>

Jim, please forward this to the CREN board. Note the 'Reply-To:' field.

This  is  my last  attempt  at  being civil,  if  not  diplomatic, in  my
description of this preposterous self-imposed restriction that I am tired
of seeing "added to the  list of problems deserving future consideration"
or otherwise ignored.  I am not interested in being  told once more about
the details of the internal CREN  bureaucracy that have to be followed in
order to open up  a possibility for an eventual change  of this limit. It
simply has to be removed - not "some day", but now.

LISTSERV is being rewritten in a  compiled language. As a result, a large
number  of small  REXX  files are  slowly being  replaced  with a  larger
executable file.  As the REXX  code is converted,  the size of  this file
increases, and it  has now reached the Holy Limit  of 300kb (which really
doesn't mean that  much code). The result is that  some people, connected
behind  sites that  enforce the  300k  limit in  an attempt  to be  "good
citizens"  (and   how  can  they   be  blamed  for   following  official,
rubber-stamped recommendations?) are no longer able to receive fixes from
me, and indeed they will not be  able to install new versions of LISTSERV
until this limit is removed or I  send them the necessary files via other
means (FTP). I am  not going to change all my  carefully tuned and tested
distribution procedures just  for a ridiculous historic  limit which CREN
should actually be ashamed of not having addressed yet. I am doing enough
volunteer work  to help BITNET stay  alive to resent being  given answers
which boil  down to "Yes, we  agree it is  a problem but we  have decided
that it is urgent not to do anything about it at the moment lest we might
do something we come to regret later".

Some of you may remember that I  was the first to advocate enforcing file
size limits - in 1987, when all the traffic between Europe and the US had
to  fight for  access to  two half-duplex  and unreliable  9.6k links.  I
actually wrote  a popular package to  hold large files during  prime time
and release  them at night,  and a  series of traffic  recommendations to
improve throughput and user service  (known under the codename E87TRAFF).
But these recommendations already said that the maximum file sizes should
be  increased  as   faster  lines  become  available.  In   1987,  I  was
recommending a limit  of 10k records, or  780kb. We are in  1992 now, and
there is  a 768k line  just for traffic  between the US  and Scandinavia,
while CERN enjoys twice  as much bandwidth. The BITNET II  core in the US
is based  on the  NSFnet T3 backbone.  The problem is  not with  having a
limit, but with having  a limit based on the technology  we used in 1987.
The lines  have become two orders  of magnitude faster, but  the official
file  limit  is still  300k.  This  prevents  some  members of  CREN  and
associate networks from obtaining one  of the few software packages which
is  both very  popular and  without any  Internet equivalent  - in  other
words, one of the few assets that BITNET still has. Is this what the CREN
board wants?

  Eric