From: news@wolves.uucp (The Wolfe of the Den)
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.misc,alt.bbs.unixbbs
Subject: Re: Unix BBS Software FAQ with answers (partial) v0.1
Date: 14 Oct 92 00:59:48 GMT
Reply-To: news@wolves.durham.nc.us
Organization: Wolves Den UNIX
X-Md4-Signature: b4bf6254a6d97a87ef2044f90a9c79a4

In article <1992Oct12.155936.25950@r-node.gts.org> marc@r-node.gts.org 
(Marc Fournier - Sys Admin) writes:
>In article <1992Oct9.145020.19838@wolves.uucp> news@wolves.uucp 
(The Wolfe of the Den) writes:
>>Nope.  Usenet is only the netnews software.  There is no Usenet mail,
>>there is no Usenet ftp, there is no Usenet telnet, etc....   Usenet is
>>the network of sites that exchange messages in Usenet news format.  period.
>>
>	It is *just* the netnews software...and then you say it is
>a network of sites??  Hmmm...and the email that I send out of this
>site goes out in mail format, not news format, so there is Usenet
>mail.

	Don't be quite so insistent.  The network consists of sites that
exchange articles in a given format.  That requires software to handle
the transfer of messages and interfacing that transfer to *whatever* the
underlying transport mechanism may be.
	There are several underlying mechanisms.  UUCP was the original
mechanism, and NNTP (an Internet Protocol) is also available.  These two
mechanisms provide most of the transfer of news from site to site.  Some
number of sites have customized the netnews software to use other
transport mechanisms -- this includes sites that convert the Usenet
messages to some other format (e.g. FIDOnet) before transferring the
messages according to whatever protocols that network may use.

	You sent email. period.  Email is transferred using a wide
variety of message passing protocols as well.  Email appears to be very
similar to Netnews messages (no suprize, since the Netnews standard is
based on the email standard) but Netnews is a superset of email.

	There are large numbers of sites and machines out there that can
exchange email that do *not* have netnews/usenet connections.  Email,
being a user-to-user affair, does not use the same high level protocols
as Netnews, however it can and often does share the lower level
transport protocols.

	The mail you send has absolutely no requirement that you or the
recipient have access to netnews.

>>	Nope, Internet offers FTP, telnet, rlogin, BIND/named, WAIS, and
>>a whole host of services that CAN NOT be offered on UUCP connected
>>sites.  Usenet is, and always has been, netnews articles, exchanged on
>>whatever physical connection is available.
>>
>	And email...and file transfers using uucp.  Telnet/FTP are
>their also, but that involves SLIP connections or local networks.  Hmmm..
>and that wouldn't make the two+ sites talking to each other SLIP 
>Internet sites either.

	File transfers using UUCP are *not* Internet services (unless
the site is using various internet service that allows uucp connections to
be made over an internet virtual circuit.)

	SLIP = Serial Line Internet Protocol.  This is a way of using a
serial connection (whether a direct wire or over a modem) to encapsulate
the octets of the internet protocols for passage over a serial line.
Local networks (and indeed the Internet itself) encapsulate the IP
octets in packets sent over the local (wide) area network hardware.

	And no, two (or more) sites talking only among themselves are
NOT Internet sites.  They may be using internet protocols, but if they
are not interconnecting two or more different hardware networks, they
are not an internet.  If they don't connect to the main NFSnet backbone
(via routers or bridges or gateways of some kind) they are definitely
not Internet sites.

	Internet is a network of networks. (Inter-Net, get it?)  "The
Internet" is specifically, those networks that use the Internet
Protocols (IP).

	Usenet is a "virtual" network, defined by exchanging messages in
the NetNews format.  Usenet can (and does) use any number of underlying
connection methods to get the messages from one place to another.
Howver, all that matters is that the messages are exchanged in the given
format.

	Internet Protocols *include* a wide variety of message types and
provide a wide variety of services.

	Usenet is simply the exchange of NetNews format messages.

	Usenet provides no other services.
-- 
Usenet Net News Administrator @ The Wolves Den  (G. Wolfe Woodbury)
news@wolves.durham.nc.us  news%wolves@cs.duke.edu  ...duke!wolves!news
"The flame war is a specific Usenet art form." --me
[This site is not affiliated with Duke University. (Idiots!) ]
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.misc