========================================================================= INFO-ATARI16 Digest Tue, 26 Dec 89 Volume 89 : Issue 861 Today's Topics: Copyrights and Commercial Networks and Usenet GEnie uplink is shut down.. Unexpandable megas USENET -> GEnie uplink now working (2 msgs) Usenet messages on CIS, GEnie ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Dec 89 01:50:46 GMT From: fox!portal!cup.portal.com!Xorg@apple.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) Subject: Copyrights and Commercial Networks and Usenet Message-ID: <25376@cup.portal.com> Just to echo Dave's words, GEnie has been *exteremely* receptive to new ideas and newsgroups on their system. Two years ago I and a few other veteran wargamers had a vision of creating a large newsgroup of board wargamers and starting some Play-By-E-Mail games. GEnie was very helpful in getting us starting and giving us a chance to prove that the people were out there to support our idea. Two years later we have a thriving Diplomacy and Wargaming Category with industry support from ever major game manufacturer and have hundred of regular readers - I know of NO other service that would allowed us this opportunity and taken this chance. Peter Szymonik ------------------------------ Date: 26 Dec 89 00:03:16 GMT From: thelake!steve@UMN-CS.CS.UMN.EDU (Steve Yelvington) Subject: GEnie uplink is shut down.. Message-ID: <1125891803166696@thelake.UUCP> In article <25357@cup.portal.com>, Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com displays some basic misunderstandings that are fueling this whole bandwidth-wasting discussion. This is an attempt to clear them up for everybody's sake. > What I'm surprised that no one has suggested throughout all of this is that > GEnie just bite the bullet and become a UseNet site. Even the most vocally antiGEnieans have suggested precisely that. > Portal has been > mentioned several times in the discussion, but Portal is a paying member > of UseNet and has full two-way access. The way GEnie was doing it was > by getting in "the backdoor", for free. Paying member of Usenet? Paying whom? Not me. I may forget my phone number sometimes, but I wouldn't forget a check from Portal. No siree. It doesn't work that way. Usenet is NOT a physical network. Usenet is NOT a legal entity. Usenet does NOT have a corporate existence. To be on the network, you don't have to pass muster with any sort of screening committee. There isn't one. You don't buy a license. You don't have to get a node number. Usenet is not the Internet, nor is it Fidonet, nor is it run by the government or by universities or even corporations. It's just something that happens, by consensus: Site A agrees to exchange messages with site B. Site B agrees to exchange messages with sites C, D and E. If Site A doesn't like Site E appearing on the network, it can decline to participate in the network. It has no authority to forbid Site E from joining. > There would be no "flood" of GEnie material, as only messages specifically > posted to UseNet (as with Portal) would appear on the newsgroups. That's up to the site (GEnie). > However, it would take money to set up as a UseNet site, and it would take > software to handle the newsgroup feeds. That would take a bit more selling > than just offering them something for free. Usenet software is free. Usenet news standards are quite simple and well-documented. If I can figure it out, I'm sure it's intelligible to General Electric, one of the world's largest industrial corporations, and its data-networking subsidiary (of which GEnie is a minor component). Everybody, PLEASE, before you get all worked up in a dither and start flapping your arms, take the time to bone up on the network. Read the postings in news.announce.newusers. Go to the library and read Harry Henderson's excellent article on Usenet in the Waite Group's "Tricks of the Unix Masters." Read news.misc and news.admin for awhile. Do your homework. Keep the flames in the fireplace. -- THE FINE PRINT: This message is Copyright 1989 by Steve Yelvington. You may not read it. Oops! You've already read it? Now you're in deep sh*t. I'll feed you to my fire-breathing attorney, who will take your car, your house and (gasp) your computer, then destroy your city and the city of each of your relatives, and the entire planet Earth and maybe the Milky Way galaxy, and get a court order to seize Usenet and give it to the bloodsucking capitalist leeches. (No! Not the leeches!) (Yes! The leeches!) Also, if you try to post a copyright-restricted response, your monitor will explode and blow your head off, and you'll get warts on the palms of your hands. If you believe this, you must send me $1.5 million in gold and a faster hard drive. Oh, by the way, I own GEnie. I'm just kidding. Really. Happy New Year! -- Steve Yelvington at the snow-covered lake in Minnesota Reliable UUCP path: ... umn-cs.cs.umn.edu!thelake!steve ------------------------------ Date: 26 Dec 89 08:36:42 GMT From: pacbell!sactoh0!mfolivo@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Mark F. Newton) Subject: Unexpandable megas Message-ID: <2333@sactoh0.UUCP> With all the discussion (to me, whining) about how "easy" it is to expand IBM memory as opposed to the Mega, (blah blah blah), I have one thing to say. Why do you need megabytes upon megabytes of memory, if you use a computer in a home environment? Do you really need 93 Terabytes to do word processing? I have a Mega 4, and for home purposes, it is sufficient. And even for small business use, 4Mb is certainly enough to drive laser printers. Do some people really know how much memory 4Mb is? Most small businesses get by with 640k, maybe even 1Mb (which most IBMs only use less than 640k in their programs). I mean, 4000kb is not enough? About not being able to expand the Mega 2, has someone from Atari responded to my posting about the 2Mb expansion kit from Atari? To reiterate, I once worked at an Atari dealer, and we had a couple of these 2Mb expansion boards that plugged into the expansion bus. Since I had a Mega 4, you couldn't plug it in, but we never sold one to any Mega 2 owners. With all this talk about more memory, is this expansion board still available from Atari? For home use, and small business use 4Mb is certainly enough. And if you *really* need more capacity, then the TT is for you. (Although you need to go to Europe to get one) Mata ne da-cha, Shinobu -- Sakura-mento, CA mmsac!sactoh0!mfolivo mfolivo@sactoh0 pacbell!sactoh0!mfolivo (they're worth a try...) ------------------------------ Date: 26 Dec 89 01:39:38 GMT From: fox!portal!cup.portal.com!Xorg@apple.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) Subject: USENET -> GEnie uplink now working Message-ID: <25374@cup.portal.com> Is the Net designed as a means of information exchange? If so then so be it. Surely a one-way link is better than no link at all. I spend well over 75% of my Net time passing information between the other services I am on and the Net and its not fun. The fault lies not with GEnie and other pay services, but rather the Net itself. If the Net is truely set up to facilitate information exchange then its impossible for it to be 'raped' for information sinec that is its only reason for existance right? Peter Szymonik Xorg@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: 26 Dec 89 01:44:09 GMT From: fox!portal!cup.portal.com!Xorg@apple.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) Subject: USENET -> GEnie uplink now working Message-ID: <25375@cup.portal.com> The distinction between the Net and GEnie and other pay services goes far beyond the price aspect. Face it, there are things which you can get from an on-line service which the Net does not provide (and never will due to its structure.) I don't mean to knock the Net, just to point out that it is very different from other services. I can get all the free news I want from radio and television, but there is a reason why I BUY magazines like The Economist. Surely you would agree that all information is NOT free, you get what you pay for. Peter Szymonik Xorg@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: 26 Dec 89 06:45:36 GMT From: oli-stl!asylum!sharon@decwrl.dec.com (Sharon Fisher) Subject: Usenet messages on CIS, GEnie Message-ID: <9274@asylum.SF.CA.US> In article <1989Dec25.105130.23070@lsuc.on.ca> jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura) writes: > This is a long standing problem and we've been wrestling with >it on BIX. If I can blow our horn a bit, at least on BIX we *care* >about how people feel about moving messages from Usenet to BIX. I'm not sure that that's globally true. Somebody posts stuff from the NeXT newsgroups here to the NeXT forum on BIX, and when I asked if the person had asked permission, I was told no because 'it was public domain.' >I've shared messages from 'rec.arts.anime' with some specific people >on BIX, but I've only made general postings of things on special >occasions and usually with specific approval by authors. > But this leaves me with a problem: If people are doing this on >Compuserve and Genie, then BIX may be at a competitive disadvantge >because I've been the "good guy". So maybe I should change my practice >and start posting a digest of 'rec.arts.anime' on BIX? Sigh. Presumably you do what you do because you are not happy morally or ethically with the concept of posting stuff wholesale. So isn't it better to stick with your conscience? ------------------------------ End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 Issue #861 *****************************************