Last night as I recovered from my first 50 mile bike-a-thon, I had time to
think about this matter. Before continuing, I must first say that I am the
Senior Academic Mainframe Consultant here and Temple's Listserv Postmaster.
I should also say that my opinions are soley my own, not my employer's.
Temple recently began to take heavy advantage of many Internet services such
as readnews, gopher, and hytelnet. These services are available to our
faculty, staff and students. I am a major Bitnet and listserv supporter here
and have been for several years. I have three concerns in that regard.
Many systems here can now utilize Internet services. What does Bitnet give
us that Internet doesn't?
If Temple drops Bitnet, it seems as if we must also shut down our
listserver. Our Listserv hosts several popular lists one of which is
Help-net which I run. Some of you probably subscribe Help-Net and know that
it is an excellent way to learn about Internet and Bitnet services. If
Temple's Listserv had to be shut down, our listserv lists could simply be
moved to Usenet. How would that benefit Bitnet only sites who cannot access
Usenet directly? It seems to me that it would be better to allow those who
drop Bitnet to continue to run their listservers so they can continue to
provide Bitnet only sites with information. Denying Bitnet sites this
information could entise some of them to switch to Internet in order to
receive the same information. I mean no diesrespect to Eric or anyone else,
but this policy doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Why is it necessary to
run listservers only on Bitnet connected systems?
Up until recently, I did not know much about readnews. I am using it now on
Temple's new central site Unix system and I am very impressed with it. In
fact, I just asked our systems contractor to install Penn State's readnews
interface on our VM system. Once this is done, many VM users here will
probably become frequent readnews users. As such, it is reasonable to ask if
it will to our advantage continue to run a listserver. As I said earlier, it
would be nice to continue to serve information to Bitnet only sites, but
what would be in it for Temple?
As far as I know, Temple is not planning to drop Bitnet. My intuition,
however, tells me that my director will ask about this. When she does ask
me, it is possible that I may not be able to justify our staying on Bitnet.
In fact, I was recently hired back from another university with a key
condition being that I can become more involved with supporting Bitnet and
its services here. As such, I have an interest in keeping Bitnet. If,
however, I can no longer justify keeping Bitnet in my own mind, I will have
to let my director know. I must do what is in Temple's best interest even if
it is distasteful to me. So what are people thinking in this regard?
Thanks for your time.
Stan Horwitz Internet: STAN @ VM.TEMPLE.EDU Bitnet: STAN @ TEMPLEVM
Temple University's Sr. Mainframe Consultant; Manager of the Help-Net
and Suggest lists; Listserv Postmaster
Standard disclaimers apply. One of these days I will make this sig file
look much nicer.
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