From List-Managers-Owner Wed Aug 11 11:03:00 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA16798; Wed, 11 Aug 93 11:03:00 GMT Received: from bolero.rahul.net by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA16791; Wed, 11 Aug 93 04:02:49 PDT Received: by bolero.rahul.net id AA14738 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for list-managers@greatcircle.com); Wed, 11 Aug 1993 04:04:00 -0700 Message-Id: <199308111104.AA14738@bolero.rahul.net> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Dealing with GEnie Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 04:04:00 -0700 From: Michelle Dick Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk One of the members of my mailing list just made a shocking revalation. She said that GEnie is "archiving the Fatfree Digest on their Food & Wine Library". What the heck does she mean (I know nothing about GEnie)? I do have two members who get the digest through their GEnie accounts. Does GEnie operate local exploders? Is one of my members uploading the digest to some sort of pool? And why the heck wasn't I informed? Not sure how I feel about this (especially since I don't know exactly what is going on). Afterall, GEnie is a for-profit system and I don't like the idea of them using my mailing list (which I provide for free) as some sort of service that they are providing for a fee (especially when they don't ask my permission). Individual email is one thing, an archive is a whole 'nother beast. Has anyone else had something like this happen? -- Michelle Dick artemis@rahul.net From List-Managers-Owner Wed Aug 11 17:59:16 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA17317; Wed, 11 Aug 93 17:59:16 GMT Received: from soda.berkeley.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA17310; Wed, 11 Aug 93 10:59:03 PDT Received: from localhost.Berkeley.EDU by soda.berkeley.edu (5.65/KAOS-1) id AA27219; Wed, 11 Aug 93 10:56:46 -0700 Message-Id: <9308111756.AA27219@soda.berkeley.edu> To: Michelle Dick Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Dealing with GEnie In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 11 Aug 1993 04:04:00 PDT." <199308111104.AA14738@bolero.rahul.net> Date: Wed, 11 Aug 1993 10:56:44 -0700 From: "Shannon D. Appel" Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >One of the members of my mailing list just made a shocking revalation. >She said that GEnie is "archiving the Fatfree Digest on their Food & >Wine Library". What the heck does she mean (I know nothing about >GEnie)? I do have two members who get the digest through their GEnie >accounts. Does GEnie operate local exploders? Is one of my members >uploading the digest to some sort of pool? And why the heck wasn't I >informed? The 'Libraries' in GEnie are collections of files that have been uploaded by subscribers. It's very likely that one of your GEnie subscribers is archiving your Digest in one of these areas. GEnie itself has nothing to do with it. >Not sure how I feel about this (especially since I don't know exactly >what is going on). Afterall, GEnie is a for-profit system and I don't >like the idea of them using my mailing list (which I provide for free) >as some sort of service that they are providing for a fee (especially >when they don't ask my permission). Individual email is one thing, an >archive is a whole 'nother beast. Well, I'll give you that the subscriber is being somewhat impolite by not letting you know that he's archiving your Digest. However, he's also helping to spread the Digest to people who wouldn't have otherwise seen it. Since you assumedly are running your Digest to provide certain information to people, that would seem to be a good thing. GEnie _is_ making money every time someone downloads your digest from the library, but I don't see why that's a big deal. Sure, they're making money off of something you do for free, but they're _really_ making that money because they're providing a service that people wouldn't otherwise have access too. If it really stresses you out, place a compilation copyright on your digest. I, personally, am happy when my Digests are archived on GEnie, or Compuserve or American On Line, because it means that many more people are reading it (and thus, it makes putting together the Digest that much more worthwhile). Shannon From List-Managers-Owner Sat Aug 14 00:58:26 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA29382; Sat, 14 Aug 93 00:58:26 GMT Received: from relay1.UU.NET by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA29375; Fri, 13 Aug 93 17:58:17 PDT Received: from spool.uu.net (via LOCALHOST) by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA08653; Fri, 13 Aug 93 21:00:04 -0400 Received: from rde.UUCP by uucp6.uu.net with UUCP/RMAIL (queueing-rmail) id 205853.25698; Fri, 13 Aug 1993 20:58:53 EDT Received: from homebase.vistachrome.com by cyan.vistachrome.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA24266; Fri, 13 Aug 93 20:52:48 EDT Received: by homebase.vistachrome.com (5.65/1.35) id AA07467; Fri, 13 Aug 93 20:54:59 -0400 From: andy@homebase.vistachrome.com (Andy Finkenstadt) Message-Id: <9308140054.AA07467@homebase.vistachrome.com> Subject: Re: Dealing with GEnie To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 20:54:58 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <9308120810.AA19985@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> from "List-Managers-Digest-Owner@GreatCircle.COM" at Aug 12, 93 01:10:05 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL20] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2795 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi. I'm the GEnie Postmaster and Internet System Operator. I'll try to answer the questions as best I can. > From: Michelle Dick > Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 04:04:00 -0700 > Subject: Dealing with GEnie > > One of the members of my mailing list just made a shocking revalation. > She said that GEnie is "archiving the Fatfree Digest on their Food & > Wine Library". What the heck does she mean (I know nothing about > GEnie)? I do have two members who get the digest through their GEnie > accounts. Does GEnie operate local exploders? Is one of my members > uploading the digest to some sort of pool? And why the heck wasn't I > informed? The "Food and Wine RoundTable" is much like a newsgroup or mailing list dedicated to anything and everything about Food and Wine, including Beer drinking and dietary concerns. GEnie RoundTables usually consist of at least three parts: a bulletin board (discussion area) a real-time conference area (like talk, phone, or irc) a software (file) library (like ftp) >From the statement "archiving...[in the] Library" it sounds as though one of the members of the RoundTable (and perhaps one of the Sysops of it) is uploading each issue to the library to share it with other F&W RT members. Typically this is compressed into a .ZIP file to save on connect time, but I don't know this of first-hand knowledge in the case of the F&W RT. GEnie does not operate local expanders, although I have thought that this might be a good way to reduce traffic on the gateway machine. I don't have any data to back up this supposition, though. As to why you were not informed I have no idea. > > Not sure how I feel about this (especially since I don't know exactly > what is going on). Afterall, GEnie is a for-profit system and I don't > like the idea of them using my mailing list (which I provide for free) > as some sort of service that they are providing for a fee (especially > when they don't ask my permission). Individual email is one thing, an > archive is a whole 'nother beast. GEnie users are charged for connect time whether they download from the library in a compressed form or via individual electronic mail (which is not compressed). I do understand how you feel, as I sometimes feel the same way about other things. (long story). > - -- > Michelle Dick > artemis@rahul.net > Andy -- Andrew Finkenstadt | andy@{homes.com,vistachrome.com,genie.geis.com} Systems Analyst | Vista-Chrome, Homes & Land Publishing Corporation | 1600 Capital Circle SW, Tallahassee Florida 32310 +1 904-575-0189 | GEnie Postmaster, Unix & Internet RoundTables Sysop "A meeting of the Time Traveller's Association will be held two weeks ago from tomorrow. All eligible members welcome to attend." From List-Managers-Owner Mon Aug 16 18:26:48 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA08645; Mon, 16 Aug 93 18:26:48 GMT Received: from apple.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA08638; Mon, 16 Aug 93 11:26:38 PDT Received: by apple.com (5.61/19-Jul-1993-eef) id AA29108; Mon, 16 Aug 93 11:28:29 -0700 for list-managers@greatcircle.com Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 11:28:29 -0700 From: Chuq Von Rospach Message-Id: <9308161828.AA29108@apple.com> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: GEnie and mailing lists Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Excuse me if I'm popping into this late, but Brent passed this along to me as a GEnie-ite and asked me to comment. >Subject: Dealing with GEnie >From: Michelle Dick >One of the members of my mailing list just made a shocking revalation. >She said that GEnie is "archiving the Fatfree Digest on their Food & >Wine Library". What the heck does she mean (I know nothing about >GEnie)? I do have two members who get the digest through their GEnie >accounts. Does GEnie operate local exploders? Is one of my members >uploading the digest to some sort of pool? And why the heck wasn't I >informed? >Not sure how I feel about this (especially since I don't know exactly >what is going on). Afterall, GEnie is a for-profit system and I don't >like the idea of them using my mailing list (which I provide for free) >as some sort of service that they are providing for a fee (especially >when they don't ask my permission). Individual email is one thing, an >archive is a whole 'nother beast. Without covering old ground again, Shannon and Andy have the format of GEnie correct, and the general setup/philosophy. As to the ethical/legal/permissions issues, and as to whether this is a Good Thing, here's my thought: If you don't have a copyright disallowing distribution, then it's probably legal. Redistributing without your knowledge and permission is tacky as hell, but back when I was running OtherRealms, it showed up in lots of weird locations I found by accident (in many cases, fifth or sixth hand where people couldn't track me down, but if it's a direct uplink by a subscriber to your list, there's no excuse). Now, is it a good thing, given that GEnie charges money? To be honest, I think that's a false issue: do you refuse access to your list from subscribers from netcom? from panix? From any of the dozens of usenet sites that charge users for access to email and usenet? If not, what's the difference between a netcom user paying to read it on internet and a GEnie user paying to download it on GEnie? To me, there is none. Other people likely disagree. There is no right answer, except for each individual. My cut on it is that a mailing list is an information provider, and if having it on GEnie encourages dissemination if that information, great. I'm not LESS rich because GEnie charges to let them read it. I've lost nothing, but gained a reader. Ditto netcom. Panix. Name your commercial service of choice. Not everyone has access (or is willing to track down access) to a non-subscription usenet node. To me, restricting distribution from these services is cutting off the nose to spite the face. If the user chooses to spend their money to read it, that's the user's decision. Not everyone CAN get to it for free, and commercial nodes are popping up all over the usenet/internet, so the argument that these 'commercial' services are bad ar getting harder and harder to justify. How many of the folks on this list have subscriber lists that are free of commercial services? (how many have bothered to check? I know mine aren't clean). What's the difference between a user choosing to spend a couple of bucks to download from GEnie or $15 a month at netcom for the same data? In my eyes, none. So I don't worry about it. If it DOES bother you, though, you can ask your subscriber (or send to the entire list) to please note upload to the commercial services. If that doesn't work, I can take a message to the appropriate sysop on GEnie and ask them to remove the archives and not allow future postings. They're generally very cooperative, especially when the source of the material didn't give permission, strictly legal or not. But maybe this is a question that needs to be hashed out. Why is it 'okay' for something like netcom to do this? While commercial services like CompuServe or GEnie cause people to go booga-booga and look for communists in the wainscotting? I really don't see the difference. From List-Managers-Owner Mon Aug 16 18:35:18 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA08742; Mon, 16 Aug 93 18:35:18 GMT Received: from hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu (hawkwind.utcs.utoronto.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA08733; Mon, 16 Aug 93 11:34:57 PDT Received: from localhost by hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu with SMTP id <2712>; Mon, 16 Aug 1993 14:36:30 -0400 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: GEnie and mailing lists In-Reply-To: chuq's message of Mon, 16 Aug 93 14:28:29 -0400. <9308161828.AA29108@apple.com> Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 14:36:17 -0400 From: Chris Siebenmann Message-Id: <93Aug16.143630edt.2712@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk A thought about commercial services and evilness: What is the real difference between me buying an account on world.std.com and me buying a SLIP connection from my local service provider? I'd be annoyed if people want to maintain that doing the latter means I shouldn't be able to get access to a mailing list. I suspect that it's time to move to a view that if people are willing to pay for it with their eyes open, more power to them and the Internet. If the service provider attempts to censor the list, then I'd get annoyed, but not otherwise. - cks From List-Managers-Owner Mon Aug 16 18:37:22 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA08760; Mon, 16 Aug 93 18:37:22 GMT Received: from hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu (hawkwind.utcs.utoronto.ca) by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA08753; Mon, 16 Aug 93 11:37:15 PDT Received: from localhost by hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu with SMTP id <2712>; Mon, 16 Aug 1993 14:39:00 -0400 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Simple mailing list manager Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 14:38:52 -0400 From: Chris Siebenmann Message-Id: <93Aug16.143900edt.2712@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk [to atone for that last message, which is somewhat off topic:] I run a bunch of mailing lists here, and by far the most time-consuming thing is adding and deleting people, so I'd like to automate this. Does anyone have some *simple* software, easy to configure and set up, that can sit on -request addresses and handle subscribe and unsubscribe requests by fiddling a file? I don't want something that does the mailing itself, or insists that the file of addresses has a funny format, or insists on using a centralized address for requests. Does this leave anything? - cks From List-Managers-Owner Mon Aug 16 23:44:58 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09425; Mon, 16 Aug 93 23:44:58 GMT Received: from presto.ig.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09418; Mon, 16 Aug 93 16:44:50 PDT Received: by presto.ig.com (5.61/1.15) id AA24961; Mon, 16 Aug 93 16:41:21 -0700 Message-Id: <9308162341.AA24961@presto.ig.com> Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 16:41:19 -0800 From: mcb@presto.ig.com (Michael C. Berch) Subject: Re: GEnie and mailing lists To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM X-Orig-Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 11:28:29 -0700 X-Orig-From: Chuq Von Rospach X-Orig-Message-Id: <9308161828.AA29108@apple.com> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Chuq Von Rospach writes: > [...] > But maybe this is a question that needs to be hashed out. Why is it 'okay' > for something like netcom to do this? While commercial services like > CompuServe or GEnie cause people to go booga-booga and look for communists > in the wainscotting? I really don't see the difference. I think there *is* a definite difference. In a nutshell, I feel that Usenet/Internet sites are "family", that share a common culture (regardless of whether they are commercial pay-for-time sites or not) and the big so-called online services aren't "family". The online services have a history of trying to control everything their users do, control what they see and have access to, "manage" the information flow (ranging from creative editing to outright censorship of conferences/bulletin boards). They also often place restrictions on users' internal and external e-mail, and have a history of not being good network citizens with respect to e-mail gateways (members of this list should understand that very well). Their charging policies are abusive and ridiculous, and the user agreements are one-sided contracts of adhesion. Furthermore, they try to give their users the impression that everything valuable in the network unverse is under (their) one roof -- they exist only to attract users to their tent, as opposed to places like Netcom (etc.), whose entire purpose is to give people access to the world of the Net. That's a *big* difference. Most important, though, is their attitude toward ownership of information -- they are only too happy to *import* value-added information (like the contents of various Usenet groups, Internet mailing lists, or file archives), but jealously guard their own value-added information against being redistributed, by slapping a compilation copyright on it and threatening people who want to redistribute it. If you could arbitrarily take a GEnie round-table or CompuServe Forum and gateway it to a Usenet group, or if GEnie or CompuServe or AOL or Prodigy put up anonymous FTP archives of some of their stuff, I would be happy to let them play in our sandbox. But this doesn't look likely. Obviously there are exceptions to the general rule; some systems are better than others, and sometimes even act cooperatively. Some, like Prodigy, don't look like they will ever be good Net citizens. Obviously these systems have a right to exist, and serve some basic purposes that can't presently be done via the Net. But as to value-added information, I think there is a definite conflict -- call it cultural or religious -- between their way of doing things and ours, and I would like ours to win. This has nothing to do with whether users are charged or not; it's a matter of style and intent. -- Michael C. Berch mcb@presto.ig.com / mcb@net.bio.net [Manager of jump-in-the-river, the Sinead O'Connor Mailing list, simpsons, the Simpsons Mailing List, and Co-Moderator, rec.arts.sf.reviews] From List-Managers-Owner Tue Aug 17 00:54:38 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09570; Tue, 17 Aug 93 00:54:38 GMT Received: from neon.rain.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09563; Mon, 16 Aug 93 17:54:28 PDT Received: by neon.rain.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.28.1 #28.17) id ; Mon, 16 Aug 93 17:48 PDT Message-Id: Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 17:48 PDT From: jeff@neon.rain.com (Jeff Beadles) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, chuq@apple.com (Chuq Von Rospach) Subject: Re: GEnie and mailing lists Reply-To: jeff@onion.rain.com (Jeff Beadles) Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In list-managers chuq@apple.com wrote: ... >Other people likely disagree. There is no right answer, except for each >individual. My cut on it is that a mailing list is an information provider, >and if having it on GEnie encourages dissemination if that information, >great. I'm not LESS rich because GEnie charges to let them read it. I've >lost nothing, but gained a reader. So, in other words, say I bound a mailing list into a book and sold it for a profit, that would be ok too? (I'm just disseminating the information.) I'm interested on how far this could be carried... Later, -Jeff -- Jeff Beadles jeff@onion.rain.com From List-Managers-Owner Tue Aug 17 05:15:37 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09879; Tue, 17 Aug 93 05:15:37 GMT Received: from heifetz.msen.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA09872; Mon, 16 Aug 93 22:15:29 PDT Received: by heifetz.msen.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.22.1 #22.11) id ; Tue, 17 Aug 93 01:04 EDT Received: by hamjudo (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA28071; Tue, 17 Aug 93 00:49:45 EDT Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 00:49:45 EDT From: paulh@hamjudo.mi.org (Paul Haas) Message-Id: <9308170449.AA28071@hamjudo> To: chuq@apple.com, jeff@onion.rain.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: GEnie and mailing lists Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk In list-managers chuq@apple.com wrote: Chuq> Other people likely disagree. There is no right answer, except for each Chuq> individual. ... I mostly agree with Chuq. I want to expand on that last point, a reasonable person could run different lists with different policies. Each mailing list should have a charter. If you feel strongly about this sort of thing, set the rules in the charter. If you feel very strongly, put the rules as a header or footer on each message. In list-managers jeff@onion.rain.com (Jeff Beadles) wrote in a reply to chuq: Jeff> So, in other words, say I bound a mailing list into a book and sold it Jeff> for a profit, that would be ok too? (I'm just disseminating the information.) Everytime I get quoted correctly in a national magazine, I think it is really cool. A whole book with my mailing list, wow, that would be megacool. On the other hand, if I get misquoted, the coolness factor drops significantly. If you edit my mailing list and publish it, I will probably not be happy. Making a book out of the lists I currently run would just be pointless, but if you want to, you can. Someone (a real user) actually got the whole archive for one of my mailing lists and read it. He later remarked on how it was a masochistic thing to do. The value of the lists drops dramatically when the information gets stale. What is the shelf life of your mailing list? I also run a mailing list for former employees of a certain company. It is a closed list. It is not appropriate to redistribute that mailing list by any means. Paul Haas paulh@hamjudo.mi.org From List-Managers-Owner Tue Aug 17 15:00:20 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11117; Tue, 17 Aug 93 15:00:20 GMT Received: from apple.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA10127; Mon, 16 Aug 93 23:28:30 PDT Received: by apple.com (5.61/19-Jul-1993-eef) id AA22556; Mon, 16 Aug 93 23:30:22 -0700 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 23:30:22 -0700 From: Chuq Von Rospach Message-Id: <9308170630.AA22556@apple.com> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, mcb@presto.ig.com Subject: Re: GEnie and mailing lists Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk (catching up all at once, since that's only one message for people to read...) >From: mcb@presto.ig.com (Michael C. Berch) >I think there *is* a definite difference. In a nutshell, I feel that >Usenet/Internet sites are "family", that share a common culture >(regardless of whether they are commercial pay-for-time sites or not) >and the big so-called online services aren't "family". I've been involved fairly heavily on both sides of the fence, and I just don't disagree. The usenet/internet folks like to think they're different (we hold this non-commercial, 60's co-op alternate lifestyle mentality up as sort of a holy grail of some sort, and when there are things to like about usenet, it's not nearly as clean, holy or grailish as we like to think), but having spent a lot of time on lots of different services, they're a lot more alike than different. This kind of mentality is stronger on the 'free' sites (i.e. someone else pays) than on the 'non-free' sites (i.e. the netcoms of the world), for obvious reasons. But I also think at some point we build a double standard on that as well, sort of like the hippie of the 60's living in the Haight on daddy's credit cards. There's a patina of rust on the shields of the soldiers of the Holy War. >The online services have a history of trying to control everything >their users do, control what they see and have access to, "manage" the >information flow Damn straight. That's one reason I spend as much time over there as I do on those sites. If you were PAYING for this stuff, would you still be as tolerant of the crap that goes down in alt? (or, these days, in news.*?) As long as daddy's paying the bills, it's easy to talk about rights and freedoms. When it's my credit card, I want very low signal-to-noise ratios, and I take a dim view of idiots cluttering up my limited time. Let THEM pay of it. (but if they had to, they wouldn't. That's why so few of the idiots DO end up on those boards. Not censorship, but because it's worth it to them only as long as they don't have to write a check). >They also often place >restrictions on users' internal and external e-mail, and have a >history of not being good network citizens with respect to e-mail >gateways (members of this list should understand that very well). There are good services and bad services. So? there are good mailing list and bad mailing lists. Good newsgroups and bad newsgroups. Tarring the entire setup because of the Prodigy's of the world is overly simplistic. Don't encourage people to use bad ones. Don't throw them all out because of stereotypes. >Furthermore, they try to give their users the impression that >everything valuable in the network unverse is under (their) one roof -- They do? Then why do they now all connect to internet for email (or more. Delphi now is a full internet site with all facilities. More of that is coming). Nice rhetoric, Mike, but what's not out of date is simply rhetoric. >Most important, though, is their attitude toward ownership of >information -- they are only too happy to *import* value-added >information Netcom has netcom specific groups. Well has well specific groups. Apple, for that matter, has apple specific groups. Should we therefore declare them nasty beings for keeping some of their information to themselves? Stuff DOES come down from those locations -- shareware, patches, etc. I know CompuServe was looking at doing full, bi-directional stuff, and what I was told was it was stopped because they were afraid of getting flamed for exporting their commercial stuff, and for volumes. They're in a no-win situation. If CompuServe started downloading their MAUG stuff to comp.sys.mac.*, they'd choke a good chunk of the net from volume, much less the rest of CI$. And get flamed. If they don't, they get flamed for not sharing like good neighbors. I'm not saying Mike's wrong. He has valid points. I'm uncomfortable with USENET stuff being uploaded to a service and having a compilation copyright attached (however unenforceable, given that there were unrestricted sources, and I know from my conversations with both GEnie and CI$ over OtherRealms that in stuff like that, it's a bureaucratic thing more than a practical one, since it's difficult/impossible to differentiate, and not something they'd enforce). On the other hand, it's like that in the real world, too. The novel MOBY DICK is in the public domain. If I create a new edition and publish it, I can copyright the new edition. You have every right to go and publish your own edition of MOBY DICK, but if you do it by typing in my edition instead of a public domain copy, and I can prove it (because I changed the wording of two phrases on page 112), then I can nail you in court. And you'll lose. What's the difference? None. Except that, for some reason, we think we ought to have it our way, and not how real life is. USENET is like that, and one of these days, I'm afraid it's going to get burnt by it. We tend to stand very loud and strong behind laws that are to our advantage (first amendment, say), and tend to ignore the ones that are inconvenient (copyright, except whe we're protecting our own stuff). This isn't a flame at Mike or aynoen on the list, but a commentary on the environment we live in here. If we're going to throw stones at the commercial services for being bad citizens or not something we want in our community, we better go take a look to see if our own windows are boarded up. >From: jeff@neon.rain.com (Jeff Beadles) >So, in other words, say I bound a mailing list into a book and sold it >for a profit, that would be ok too? (I'm just disseminating the information.) Frankly, I dunno. Templeton's done it for a while. The Hacker's Dictionary, is, I believe, based heavily on net sources, and I don't know how much work was done in getting permissions. There are bunches of books on Internet with varying degrees of stuff borrowed from the net, from emoticons to my ettiquette document to source code to whatever, including at least one using a LOT of copyrighted source code where the copyrights were stripped and the authors weren't checked with first, and with whom various people aren't happy. So basically, it's already happening. If it happens WITH permission of the people in charge (i.e. us), then great. If not, well, ethical and legal are two separate issues. I'm a firm believer in common sense and decency and asking permission, but frankly, I'm not sure whether any of those give me a legal backing to take lawyers into court to stop someone, either. too many gray areas, too few legal precedents. "What I'd like" and "What's legal" and "What people ought to do" are sometimes skew. That's life. It's an interesting question. OtherRealms carried special copyrights to prevent this kind of re-use without permission. Of course, lots of folks ON THIS NET blithely ignored that and did what they wanted, anyway. I got real tired of playing bad copy trying to protect my author's best interests. Now, if someone wanted to publish the best of the San Francisco Giants Mailing list? Well, yippee. It's not something that I think has any intrinsic worth to defend. It'd be a hoot for all involved. And if they made a million bucks and didn't share, I'd slap a copyirght on everything and publish the next book myself. >From: paulh@hamjudo.mi.org (Paul Haas) >I mostly agree with Chuq. I want to expand on that last point, a >reasonable person could run different lists with different policies. And do. OtherRealms was fairly tight copyright-wise, to protect the authors. Fat lot of good it did me. USENET's notoriously weak on following the law, but watch out if you try to return the favor ("You can't steal that from me! I spent a week typing that book in!") My current stuff is more barroom chatter, by design. I'm not into deep, philosophical mailing lists these days, except maybe this one. I'm more interested in whether we'll re-sign Will Clark or if they're going on Strike on Labor Day. >Each mailing list should have a charter. If you feel strongly about >this sort of thing, set the rules in the charter. If you feel very >strongly, put the rules as a header or footer on each message. Everyone who signs onto my list gets a formal introduction. Charter, acceptable and unacceptable behavior, signon/signoff procedures (mainly ignored, of course, although I think I have folks trained for the most part ("They're kids. Scare them." -- Crash Davis, Bull Durham). That way, everyone starts on level field, except those with no memory, those who don't bother reading it, and Kenton Yee. It definitely helps. I can point to a rule and say "stop it". We can argue interpretations, but "it's my list, and you don't get a vote" works in a pinch. Just don't use it too often. >Everytime I get quoted correctly in a national magazine, I think it is >really cool. Way back in 1984, I spearheaded writing the first formal usenet etiquette (damn, I'm dating myself again. Warning, old fogey reminiscing ahead. Batten down the hatches, it's going to be a storm!), and put it in the public domain. People STILL ask me for reprint permission. it used to be a jazz. The first time it got reprinted. The first time it got translated to French, or German. Or Finnish or Kanji, for that matter. After a while, I guess you get used to it. (although to think that something has lasted this long with so little need for adaptation, in so many cultures on so many networks around the world, that IS cool. I guess I'm a jaded old phart instead of an old fogey). Mostly, though, I think I'm here to disseminate information. I'm not particualrly worried about how that information gets disseminated, since it doesn't cost me any grief or money. If I was doing a weekly update on the Giants and having it typed in and posted, which was causing me to lose subscribers, I'd be pissed. Since my net income is zero to start, it's rather hard to get pissed because GEnie isn't sharing, because I never wanted anyone to share in the first place. So if they wanna pass it around, BMG. But ask first. Making a book out of the lists I currently run would just be pointless, but if you want to, you can. Hey, I sometimes grab piecs of the archive, print them out and send them to people. Friends. Newspapers reporters. Baseball and hockey teams. The Sharks love it. USA Today Baseball has yelled at me in print. That's nice, but also beside the point. Let's get the information out. >I also run a mailing list for former employees of a certain company. >It is a closed list. It is not appropriate to redistribute that mailing >list by any means. My wife and I run a private list as well. Ditto. But then, the only people on that list are trusted. But then, that's why they're on it. From List-Managers-Owner Tue Aug 17 16:14:29 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11306; Tue, 17 Aug 93 16:14:29 GMT Received: from apple.com by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA11299; Tue, 17 Aug 93 09:14:21 PDT Received: by apple.com (5.61/19-Jul-1993-eef) id AA17916; Tue, 17 Aug 93 09:16:07 -0700 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 09:16:07 -0700 From: Chuq Von Rospach Message-Id: <9308171616.AA17916@apple.com> To: chuq@apple.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, mcb@presto.ig.com Subject: Re: GEnie and mailing lists Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hmm. Reading my posting again this morning, I think I came across a bit heavier in the "I just spent 40 days and 40 nights talking with an intelligent brushfire in the mountains and you offer me a BUD LIGHT?" mode. My apologies for any excessive pontification. This is an area I feel somewhat strongly about, and sometimes it leaks through more than I intend. But I DO think that a network that's notorious for fouling its own nest (although I don't believe anyone on this list contributes to that) has very little right to go talking about how terrible and blasphemous everyone else is. And, (another blasphemous statement) frankly, anarchy is overrated. What use is freedom of expression when the guy next door drowns you out with his boom box? From List-Managers-Owner Thu Aug 26 16:05:51 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA10089; Thu, 26 Aug 93 16:05:51 GMT Received: from grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA10082; Thu, 26 Aug 93 09:05:39 PDT Received: from localhost (wolf@localhost) by grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr (8.3/8.3) id SAA43319; Thu, 26 Aug 1993 18:07:44 +0200 From: Christophe Wolfhugel Message-Id: <199308261607.SAA43319@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr> Subject: Bouncing errors To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1993 18:07:42 +0200 (MET DST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Length: 728 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I'd just like opinions on following point. With older versions of sendmail, error messages were not generated if the Precedence is negative. Several lists use this. With Sendmail 8, all messages get bounced, now the problem I faced is at sites also having postrmaster copy option where bounces also annoy the postmaster and not only the list manager. Sendmail can be modified to handle errors like this: If precedence > 0, handle the normal way (bounce + postmastercopy) If precedence < 0, only bounce it and ignore postmastercopy if defined). This does only concern the local site when the error is generated at the MLM's machine software. -- Christophe Wolfhugel | Email: Christophe.Wolfhugel@grasp.insa-lyon.fr From List-Managers-Owner Fri Aug 27 17:38:04 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA12783; Fri, 27 Aug 93 17:38:04 GMT Received: from sws1.CTD.ORNL.GOV by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA12473; Fri, 27 Aug 93 08:06:24 PDT Received: by sws1.CTD.ORNL.GOV (5.65/DEC-Ultrix/4.3) id AA00369; Fri, 27 Aug 1993 11:08:32 -0400 Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1993 11:08:32 -0400 From: Dave Sill Message-Id: <9308271508.AA00369@sws1.CTD.ORNL.GOV> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Tuning sendmail? Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I run two large (~500 international recipients) lists on a DECstation 5000/240 running Ultrix 4.3. The lists are managed by Majordomo, but sent out through a resender that maintains a database of message-ID's (to prevent looping problems), filters out subscribe/unsubscribe requests, etc. I'm invoking sendmail with the options "-odb -oep -oi". Everything works fine, but I'm wondering if there's any way to improve the turnaround time. The delay, according to syslog, ranges up to 3 hours for successful delivery on the first attempt. Monitoring the sending process using top, I see that there's frequently idle CPU time, so it's not CPU bound. What, if anything, can I do to speed this up? Would sorting the list by hostname help? (I think not, since it only takes sendmail a few minutes to start sending messages out.) How about splitting up the list and invoking sendmail individually on the pieces? Any other ideas? Thanks. -- Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov) Computers should work the way beginners Martin Marietta Energy Systems expect them to, and one day they will. Workstation Support -- Ted Nelson From List-Managers-Owner Sun Aug 29 20:27:52 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA20029; Sun, 29 Aug 93 20:27:52 GMT Received: from castor.cc.utu.fi by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA19983; Sun, 29 Aug 93 13:23:11 PDT Received: from polaris.cc.utu.fi by utu.fi id <143679-7>; Sun, 29 Aug 1993 23:25:21 +0300 Subject: Re: Tuning sendmail? From: Matti Aarnio To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1993 23:25:12 +0300 In-Reply-To: <9308280810.AA14847@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> from "List-Managers-Digest-Owner@GreatCircle.COM" at Aug 28, 93 11:10:05 am Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Content-Length: 4628 Message-Id: <93Aug29.232521eet_dst.143679-7@utu.fi> Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > I run two large (~500 international recipients) lists on a DECstation > 5000/240 running Ultrix 4.3. The lists are managed by Majordomo, but > sent out through a resender that maintains a database of message-ID's > (to prevent looping problems), filters out subscribe/unsubscribe > requests, etc. I'm invoking sendmail with the options "-odb -oep -oi". Like most of us do :) -- Really large lists do need alternate methods for routing, as you have seen. > Everything works fine, but I'm wondering if there's any way to improve > the turnaround time. The delay, according to syslog, ranges up to 3 > hours for successful delivery on the first attempt. Monitoring the > sending process using top, I see that there's frequently idle CPU > time, so it's not CPU bound. Most of the time is spent on waiting DNS servers to provide you all the necessary data. In your case on average the routing of each recipient gets done in circa 21 seconds (if delay time is circa 3 hours == 180 minutes) There must be several total query failures which take something like 40-60 seconds to happen.. > What, if anything, can I do to speed this up? Would sorting the list > by hostname help? (I think not, since it only takes sendmail a few > minutes to start sending messages out.) How about splitting up the > list and invoking sendmail individually on the pieces? Any other > ideas? A lengthty time is spent at figuring out possible MX records, and in lack of them, A records. Average timeout on getting the data is 20-30 seconds. You may get some improvement by using BIND 4.9.2 (?), and possible more by making your local DNS server to be an unofficial secondary of the most common domains that your list has. Splitting the list will speed up the first delivery, and very propably will increase load of your machine as you get multiple sendmail's to run in parallel. Not everybody has placed MX records for their systems, and most common DNS servers (BSD bind aka. named) does not implement NEGATIVE-CACHE (eg. cache 'no data available' responces and possibly 'query timeout') so that servers needing such negative information would get it from their local server instead of going to the source servers, things are bound to take several query timeouts, including query of unnecesserily (IMO) non-existent MXes.. There is a system which handles several million (aggregate) messages a day on long lists, but its trick is usage of static routing tables. (Yes, it is the "Revised LISTSERV") I don't believe there is a way to achieve equivalent situation in the current DNS managed universe. When everybody gets their act together at running the DNS, and understands that every mail-receiving system MUST have MXes, and they have their domain zones replicated (with authenticity from the upper level!) so that there would always be data available. I run a multi-module mailer (not sendmail) which has a group of processes doing message routing via several database lookups, and once the message routing is done, it is given to the transport-scheduler to send out. Single message routing can take a long time (say, 500 recipients..), and therefore to get any thruput I run 9 routers, there are sites running up to 30 (does "Linux" say anything ? Very active lists with large number of recipients.. all of them running at same machine!) Once the routing is done, transport scheduler takes over, and runs smtp channels as many in parallel as postmaster wishes (and did configure). If same systems receives multiple messages that are in the scheduler at the same time, they are sent in same smtp session... To summarize, your alternatives are: - use static routing tables, and no MXes at all, fastest routing! (Remember to ask an ok from those systems that you consider of using for delivery to some large group of recipients..) - have local DNS server with non-official secondaries of your most common recipient systems (This must include also upper level zones in relevance to those that recipients are..), and run MXed mailer. - Split the list (somehow) into several sub-lists of 50-100 recipients each to have multiple routers running. - Have more efficient mailer, than BSD sendmail. (sendmail-8 MAY be somewhat more efficient, than the old 5.x) > Thanks. > - -- > Dave Sill (de5@ornl.gov) Computers should work the way beginners > Martin Marietta Energy Systems expect them to, and one day they will. > Workstation Support -- Ted Nelson /Matti Aarnio From List-Managers-Owner Mon Aug 30 18:43:15 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA25641; Mon, 30 Aug 93 18:43:15 GMT Received: from SERVER.uwindsor.ca by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA25634; Mon, 30 Aug 93 11:42:52 PDT Received: by SERVER.uwindsor.ca (920330.SGI/920502.SGI.AUTO) for Ophof@CS.UWindsor.ca id AA13755; Mon, 30 Aug 93 14:36:06 -0400 Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1993 20:40:36 -0400 From: "F. Scott Ophof" Subject: Re: Tuning sendmail? Message-Id: <930829.204036-0400@MReXX-0.18> To: Cc: Eric Thomas In-Reply-To: Your message of Sun, 29 Aug 1993 23:25:12 +0300 Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sun, 29 Aug 1993 23:25:12 +0300 Matti Aarnio said: >> I run two large (~500 international recipients) lists on a DECstation >> 5000/240 running Ultrix 4.3. The lists are managed by Majordomo, but >>... > Like most of us do :) -- Really large lists do need alternate methods >for routing, as you have seen. >> Everything works fine, but I'm wondering if there's any way to improve >> the turnaround time. The delay, according to syslog, ranges up to 3 >> hours [...] > There is a system which handles several million (aggregate) messages >a day on long lists, but its trick is usage of static routing tables. >(Yes, it is the "Revised LISTSERV") I don't believe there is a way to >achieve equivalent situation in the current DNS managed universe. When >everybody gets their act together at running the DNS, and understands that >every mail-receiving system MUST have MXes, and they have their domain >zones replicated (with authenticity from the upper level!) so that there >would always be data available. ... >To summarize, your alternatives are: >... Multi-tasking on a single machine may help, but it has its limits. *IF* the original MLM is part of a network of MLMs, then there may be another alternative. Split the list of subscribers into sections, and let MLMs on OTHER HARDWARE take care of distributing the item to their subsection of the subscriber list. This could be done by either distributing the item with a subsection of the subscriber list, or having each participating MLM maintain its own section of the subscriber-list. For either method, each separate MLM may need to advertise its own "throughput factor", ie. how many outgoing items it can handle in a given unit. This would be useful in determining over how many (and with which) MLMs to split a subscriber-list. Of course there's the possible problem of sites not wishing their own resources to be used in this manner by other sites. But anyone running or having run a Revised LISTSERV in the BITnet world knows that such cooperation can and has been achieved, to the ultimate benefit of large numbers of people & less resource wasting in the overall sense. Question: How do the various MLMs handle an item destined for more than one subscriber at the same site (ie. only the local part differs)? Overall commentary: The Internet is basicly a connection-oriented network. But this setting-up of a connection takes real time (and not small fractions of a second either!). There's a bit of wry humor in that a solution for a throughput problem in an originally rather slow connection-less daisychained network might be useable as solution to essentially the same kind of problem in the TCP/IP / DNS world. :-) Not too sure, but RFC-1429, the "Listserv Distribute Protocol" by Eric Thomas might shed some more light on the whole subject. Actually, I'm rather shocked that this imho rather obvious solution hasn't yet been suggested and implemented in the Internet world. Will someone please prove me wrong in some way?!? Regards. $$\ To cooperate or not to cooperate, zat ies ze qvestionne... ;-) From List-Managers-Owner Mon Aug 30 20:07:57 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA25928; Mon, 30 Aug 93 20:07:57 GMT Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA25921; Mon, 30 Aug 93 13:07:49 PDT Message-Id: <9308302007.AA25921@mycroft.GreatCircle.COM> Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEARN.SUNET.SE (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 0305; Mon, 30 Aug 93 22:07:14 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin ERIC@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with RFC822 id 5695; Mon, 30 Aug 1993 22:07:14 +0200 Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 21:58:10 +0200 From: Eric Thomas Subject: Re: Tuning sendmail? To: "F. Scott Ophof" , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, "Michael H. Morse" In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 30 Aug 1993 16:01:25 EDT from "Michael H. Morse" Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, 30 Aug 1993 16:01:25 EDT "Michael H. Morse" said: >> Actually, I'm rather shocked that this imho rather obvious solution >> hasn't yet been suggested and implemented in the Internet world. Will >> someone please prove me wrong in some way?!? > >The problem was solved long ago. It's called news. Actually, news has a much higher turnaround time than DISTRIBUTE and also uses up a lot more bandwidth for typical mailing lists (100-5000 subscribers), since tens of thousands of sites without a single subscribers have to relay the messages. Anyway I am not interested in this discussion. LISTSERV has had a working solution to the problem of "large" lists since 1987 and I have no interest in being told that the problem only exists in my mind and/or that everyone should use news instead. I am sure there is a newsgroup or ten for LISTSERV-bashing, I am equally sure that it is not gatewayed to the eric@searn.sunet.se mailing list, and I like it that way :-) Eric From List-Managers-Owner Tue Aug 31 05:25:44 1993 Return-Path: Received: by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27516; Tue, 31 Aug 93 05:25:44 GMT Received: from note2.nsf.gov by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/Brent-921015) id AA27509; Mon, 30 Aug 93 22:25:36 PDT Received: from z.nsf.gov by Note2.nsf.gov id aa05602; 30 Aug 93 15:57 EDT Received: by z.nsf.gov (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA03387; Mon, 30 Aug 93 16:01:25 EDT Message-Id: <9308302001.AA03387@z.nsf.gov> From: "Michael H. Morse" Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1993 16:01:25 EDT In-Reply-To: "F. Scott Ophof" "Re: Tuning sendmail?" (Aug 29, 8:40pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.1.1 5/02/90) To: "F. Scott Ophof" , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Mmdf-Warning: Parse error in original version of preceding line at Note2.nsf.gov Subject: Re: Tuning sendmail? Cc: Eric Thomas Sender: List-Managers-Owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Actually, I'm rather shocked that this imho rather obvious solution > hasn't yet been suggested and implemented in the Internet world. > Will someone please prove me wrong in some way?!? The problem was solved long ago. It's called news. --Mike