>>3) An EARN site running as backbone server must run LISTEARN.
>
>This is the right interpretation.
 
Yes Alain, but  you have not defined what "backbone"  means. I know three
and a half meanings of this word:
 
1. Sites participating  to the OSI/X.25 project (or whatever  you wish to
   call it)  used to  be called  "EARN backbone  sites" in  EARN BoD/Exec
   documents.
 
2. A number of technical people, including Jose-Maria and myself, used to
   call  "EARN  backbone  sites"  what is  now  officially  called  "EARN
   international sites". This is how  Olivier just said he understood the
   directive.
 
3. "The LISTSERV backbone" refers  to LISTSERV sites having :backbone.YES
   in  their  PEERS  NAMES  entry;  a   large  number  of  them  are  not
   "international sites".
 
4. Later in  your note you refer  to the "LISTEARN backbone".  Yes, it is
   true that now, for political reasons, EARN sites have a different list
   of backbone LISTSERV sites than  BITNET sites, because ICNUCEVM cannot
   do  like IRLEARN  and  UKACRL and  send  me a  note  saying that  they
   apologize for  not having updated their  tables for 5 months  and have
   taken steps to ensure that, in the future, tables will be updated on a
   regular  basis. And  I'm  afraid that,  as time  goes,  the number  of
   discrepancies between the 2 sets will go increasing.
 
>It  might be  (but this  is  just a  personal guess)  removing from  the
>LISTEARN backbone.
 
Since  I would  not accept  to  remove an  (otherwise smoothly  operated)
LISTSERV site from the BITNET backbone  just because it refused to sign a
contract according to a directive whose  wording is at best ambiguous, we
would  indeed be  talking  about  an increase  in  the  disorder of  this
network.
 
>  2. Propose the  listserver directive, to make sure that  at least EARN
>     listserver backbone  sites run the  same version of  listserver, to
>     avoid problems of incompatibility between backbone servers.
 
Ok Alain, you may say again that I keep complaining about everything EARN
does or says. But please take a  few minutes to think about the two logic
errors in your statement:
 
- The directive  is to SIGN the  contract, not to USE  the software. That
  is,  you CAN  run 1.6  if you  want,  as long  as you  have signed  the
  LISTEARN contract. Obviously  having a piece of paper in  a drawer does
  not solve compatibility problems.
 
- If  compatibility problems  between :backbone.YES  servers exist,  they
  will strike you regardless of whether the "border" between LISTEARN and
  1.6-land is  inside or outside  EARN. Indeed, probably the  worst thing
  you can do, from  the diplomatic point of view, is  to have the problem
  strike at the EARN/BITNET border, ie have a setup that forces personnel
  of BITNET  sites to take action  whenever there is a  problem. It would
  indeed be much more tactful to cause all the problems to occur entirely
  within EARN,  so that  only EARN  personnel is affected  if there  is a
  problem; this is actually, and fortunately, the case now.
 
Eric