From: ckd@eff.org (Christopher Davis)
Subject: Re: usenet on a CD?
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation Tech Central
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 05:21:47 GMT

ftp.uu.net:/vendor/sterling/NetNews-CD:
================================================================
Subject: NetNews/CD - USENET News Available on CD-ROM

NetNews/CD is a distribution and archiving service which makes USENET 
News available on CD-ROM.  Now, with NetNews/CD, the wealth of information 
available via USENET is archived and readily available when you need it, 
not just when it arrives.  With NetNews/CD you will be able to keep years 
of USENET News on your shelf so that you can access and benefit from it 
at your convenience.

With nearly 3000 active newsgroups and more being created daily, one of 
the major problems with USENET News has been the massive amounts of data.  
Most sites do not have the disk space to store it all on a daily basis, 
let alone a yearly basis.  Those that do receive a full feed are forced 
to use relatively short news expire times to free up disk space for 
incoming daily news.  Many sites have had to limit the number of groups 
they subscribe to due to the speeds of their modems, the costs of long
distance phone calls to an upstream USENET feed or the size of the 
available disk space.  NetNews/CD solves these problems by making nearly
600 Megabytes of USENET news available on CD-ROM each issue.

The purpose of the NetNews series is to assure that the valuable information 
which passes through USENET daily is not lost, as is the case in most 
newsgroups today.  The CD-ROMs are generated as they fill up. To date, this
is about every 18 days.  A list of hierarchies which are currently available
is included below. 

NetNews/CD is a service, plain and simple.  We are not trying to sell the
words of others, as some may fear, but we are providing a distribution
and archiving service.  To those who do not have access to a USENET newsfeed,
we are supplying a newsfeed, albeit a bit slooooow.  To those with USENET
access, we are supplying an archiving service so as to reduce the time,
effort, tape and disk space needed to deal with archiving a normal full
news feed.  To those who cannot take a full feed for whatever reason, we are
somewhere in between. Our intention is not to violate anyones rights, just to
be able to save the valuable information supplied by the net for later use.
There are a lot of people archiving newsgroups and some even have full feeds
on tape. This media is no different except that it is much smaller in size
and also has the capability of being used interactively.

We place no restrictions on what subscribers do with the data on the 
CD-ROM over and above what the authors/contributors have placed on the 
data originally.  Subscribers are free to deal with it as they do a standard 
newsfeed, for example, put it into WAIS, make it available via FTP, etc.  
This is a distribution and archiving service no different than others
that sell connect time.  Please remember, the information is free, but
distributing it costs money.  The same basis applies for the CD-ROM as it
does for connection time.

Yearly subscribers receive 12 months of USENET news on CD-ROM and they
also receive the yearly NetGems special issue.  The current NetGems CD-ROM
contains the X Window System Version 11 Release 5 sources, the Free Software 
Foundation's GNU software as well as the USENET comp.sources.* archives.  
It also contains alt.sources and vmsnet.sources archives.  Besides those 
archives, NetGems also contains an archive of the Request For Comments 
(RFCs) available from the NIC which are the basis for most of the existing 
Internet protocols.  The software and RFCs on the NetGems CD were gathered 
on December 29, 1991.

        X11R5   -  X Window System Release 5, Patchlevel 8
        gnu     -  GNU software
        rfcs    -  Request For Comments
        usenet  -  USENET News source archives
                     alt.sources,           alt.sources.amiga, 
                     alt.sources.patches,   comp.archives, 
                     comp.archives.admin,   comp.sources.3b1, 
                     comp.sources.amiga,    comp.sources.apple2, 
                     comp.sources.atari.st, comp.sources.bugs, 
                     comp.sources.games,    comp.sources.hp48, 
                     comp.sources.mac,      comp.sources.misc,  
                     comp.sources.reviewed, comp.sources.sun,      
                     comp.sources.unix,     comp.sources.x,
                     news.answers,          unix-pc,
                     u3b.sources,           vmsnet.sources        

Specifics:
	Sterling Software distributes NetNews/CD in ISO 9660 format.  
Currently readers are only available for the Macintosh and UNIX platforms.  
The NetNews/CD is mountable on a DOS platform using Microsoft CD extensions, 
however, there is no reader software available at this time.  

The ISO 9660 version of "NetGems, Best of '91", will ship by late summer.  An
annual subscription includes NetGems at no additional charge.  If you would 
like to get the ISO 9660 version of the NetGems/CD (as opposed to the Sun 
version) your subscription can start immediately, and we will ship the ISO 
9660 version of NetGems as soon as it is available.

NetNews/CD is available in both a yearly subscription or single issue rate.

Costs:
	Yearly subscription + NetGems  -  $349.95 US plus shipping.
	Individual issues              -   $39.95 US plus shipping.
        NetGems, Best of '91           -   $49.95 US plus shipping.

Volume discounts are available.

Phone inquiries concerning orders and technical support questions may be 
made between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM CST, Monday through Friday at 1-800-643-NEWS
(or 1-800-643-6397) for US originated calls and 1-402-291-2108.  The FAX number
is 1-402-291-4362.  There are also electronic mail addresses:

Mailing list information:

NetNews/CD Service Administrative email:
        cdnews@sterling.com or uunet!sparky!cdnews

Service Directional Group email:
        cddev@sterling.com or uunet!sparky!cddev

To be added to the cddev mailing list send a request to:
        cddev-request@sterling.com or uunet!sparky!cddev-request
 
US Mail address:
        Sterling Software
        NetNews/CD
        1404 Fort Crook Road South
        Bellevue, NE  68005-2969

Please, if you have any suggestions or comments we want to hear them. 

###########################################################
# List of hierarchies included on NetNews/CD distributions
###########################################################
################################
# Mainstream USENET Newsgroups
################################
alt      - alternative newsgroups
comp     - Computer related newsgroups  
misc     - newsgroups pertaining to general interest topics
news     - Newsgroups related to USENET news
rec      - Recreational newsgroups
sci      - Scientific newsgroups
soc      - Social discussion newsgroups
talk     - General talk related newsgroups
trial    - USENET Trial newsgroup hierarchy
################################
# Miscellaneous Hierarchies
################################
bionet   - Network for Biologists
bit      - Bitnet LISTSERV
biz      - Business related newsgroups
ddn      - DDN related newsgroups
gnu      - FSF GNU related newsgroups
hiv      - HIV and AIDS related newsgroups
ieee     - IEEE related newsgroups 
k12      - Kindegarten through 12th grade newsgroups - Public schools
pubnet   - Newsgroups concerning public access systems
sura     - Newsgroups related to SURAnet
u3b      - Newsgroups dealing with AT&T 3B{2,5,15,20,4000} computers 
uunet    - Newsgroups related to UUNET/Alternet
vmsnet   - Newsgroups related to VAX/VMS users
######################################
#  United States Regional Hierarchies
######################################
atl      - Atlanta, Georgia 
austin   - Austin, Texas 
ba       - San Francisco Bay Area 
boulder  - Boulder, Colorado 
ca       - California 
capdist  - NY capital district
chi      - Chicago, Illinois
co       - Colorado
dc       - Washington, DC
dfw      - Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas
fl       - Florida
ga       - Georgia
houston  - Houston, Texas
hsv      - Huntsville, Alabama
ks       - Kansas
la       - Los Angeles, CA
lou      - Louisiana
mi       - Michigan
milw     - Milwaukee, WI
mn       - Minnesota
ne       - New England States
nj       - New Jersey
ny       - New York State
nyc      - New York City, NY
oc       - Orange County, CA
oh       - Ohio
ok       - Oklahoma
or       - Oregon
pa       - Pennsylvania
pdx      - Portland/Beaverton Oregon
pgh      - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
pnw      - Pacific NorthWest
phl      - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
sac      - Sacramento, CA
scruz    - Santa Cruz, California
sdnet    - San Diego, California
seattle  - Seattle, Washington
stl      - St. Louis, Missouri
tn       - Tennessee
triangle - Research Triangle Park, NC
tx       - Texas
ugn      - Nebraska
wi       - Wisconsin
wny      - Western New York State
################################
# International Hierarchies
################################
aus      - Austrialian Newsgroups
bc       - British Columbia, Canada
bln      - Berlin Germany
can      - Canadian Newsgroups
ch       - Swiss Newsgroups
de       - Groups of German language
fj       - Japanese newsgroups
fnet     - French Distributaion
kw       - Waterloo, Canada
mtl      - Montreal, Canada
nlnet    - Netherlands
no       - Norway
ns       - Nova Scotia, Canada
nz       - New Zealand
ont      - Ontario, Canada
ott      - Ottawa, Canada
scot     - Scotland
sfnet    - Finland
swnet    - Sweden
tor      - Toronto, Canada
uk       - United Kingdom
#############################################################
# List of newsgroups from the above hierarchy *NOT* included
# on the distributions.  The exclusions are due to legal
# reasons and will not be available by this service.
#############################################################
alt.binaries.*
alt.toon-pics
alt.sex.*
alt.tasteless.*
de.alt.binaries.*
fj.binaries.*
rec.arts.erotica
--
Christopher Davis * ckd@eff.org * System Administrator, EFF * +1 617 864 0665
            ``Ed Gruberman, you fail to grasp Ti Kwan Leep.
            Approach me that you might see.'' -- The Master
Newsgroups: news.misc