Aihnss.1056
net.news
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!warren
Tue Dec 29 10:23:13 1981
More usenet comments
Subject: USENET replies
1) I think that reorganization of categories to suggest a logical
structure for "official" categories is a good idea. There can be
infinite debate as to which are business and which are personall,
but just having some rational would help. This, in combination with
a better procedure for formation of "official newsgroups, that
allows for some time between the proposal of a newsgroup and the
first massive outpouring of material, would allow sites to make
their own decisions about whether or not to carry them. We should
certainly continue to allow people to form their own groups (like
the btl groups that don't go outside of the btl sites), that aren't
necessarily intended for general consumption.
2) I feel strongly that this is the right forum for discussion of the
network, and not the USENIX conference, which many can't attend.
net.news seems to reach all of the people with a current interest.
I suggest that some time at USENIX be devoted to discussion of
USENET (or whatever), and that include a summary of proposals made
here to obtain feedback from those who aren't currently
participating.
3) I will repeat my call for a more organized distribution system.
I still think that this is essential if we are going to start
carving up the network by having lots of sites that don'e read and
forward ALL. I would suggest that there be some core of sites that
agrees to distribute all of the "official" categories, and that
other sites attach to one or more of these with no particular
commitment to forward everything. If you are atached to a core
machine, then you can be sure that you will get all of the news. If
you attach through someone else, then its up to you and them what
you get. Each private empire would be encouraged to attach directly
to the core in two places (for redundancy), rather than through
other private empires). (I find return paths like
ucbvax!decvax!ittvax! ... amusing, particularly when they terminate
in another machine in my own company. I wonder what the lawyers
would think of that one!)
4) Let me add my strong support for the protocol that tells each
machine what news is available before trying to transfer it.
autodialer (and even dialup) port time is scarce on many machines,
and what commonly happens now with many sites that get news from
multiple sources is that lots of time is spent uucp'ing over files
that are then thrown away. netnews is a major consumer of machine
time, and a scheme like this could be used to help reduce the time
burdon. It has the useful and desirable side effect of allowing
both machines to filter what gets sent. (i.e. A can filter what it
sends to B by not including certain items in the list that gets sent
to B, and B can filter what it receives by only asking for things in
it's .sys file.) I think that problems associated with once a day
polling can be fixed by scheduling 2 polls (one to get the lists of
what is new, and a second one to ask for the files). As it is now,
I don't think that polling is a significant hinderance in news
distribution, as generally things that originate in uucp land get
here quickly while some of the fa material is very late.
Happy Hacking
Warren Montgomery
ihnss!warren
Bell Labs, Indian Hill
Naperville Ill.
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