On Thu, 28 Oct 1993 09:14:51 EDT "John Alam (University of South
Carolina)" <[log in to unmask]> said:
>There are commercial companies that pay a fee to be a part of the
>Internet. Why should they not be a part of this enterprise. I have this
>gut feeling that businesses also pay taxes, some of which are used to
>subsidise the costs of the Internet.
It is a very complex issue, which I have become a lot more sensitive to
with this L-Soft business. L-Soft sells products that, while useful on a
single system, are meant to be used on a wide-scale network. People who
buy these products don't want me to mail them a tape with fixes: they
want the fix sent over the network so they get it right away and don't
need to go to the tape vault and all that. Not only that, but they don't
want me to snail contracts, information or even price lists either! They
want everything sent to them over the network, because it is faster and
more convenient. They see this as part of the service they're paying for
when they connect to the Internet. It helps them get their jobs done
faster and save time for their employer.
Now, what should a company do when it is faced with that problem? If you
insist on snailing the legal/commercial information, the customers will
assume that you will do the same with fixes, that they will have to type
problem reports and FAX them to you, in other words, that you work for a
stone-age-mentality company with which they don't want to do business.
Given the existence of companies that accept to use the network, you're
out of business unless your product is significantly better or cheaper
than the competitors'. With DEC, Microsoft and other major companies
making fixes available on the network, people are just not going to
understand why one wouldn't accept to use the network for this. Yet when
you check the acceptable use policies, this inevitably falls in a grey
area - not directly disallowed, but not clearly allowed either. It would
be extremely helpful if the governing bodies were to state clearly what
can and cannot be done. Of course, since they're afraid to lose federal
funding if they open up even a little bit, this is unlikely to happen
until federal funding is gone anyway :-)
Eric
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