On Sat,  12 Sep 1992 14:57:00  N "H.J. Woltring, fax/tel  +31.40.413 744"
<WOLTRING@HNYKUN53> said:
 
>I guess that  I was wondering whether  there are, and even  more will be
>ways in  which LISTSERV and/or LISTEARN  are and/or will be  at the dis-
>posal of non-BITNET  sites in view of the suspected  phasing out of BIT-
>NET -- whether for free or for a fee?
 
The present  version will  not work in  a non-BITNET  environment without
BITEARN NODES and so on. It can be made to work locally, that is, one can
create control files and tables which tell  the server that it is part of
a very small local network with just the local IBM machines, but then you
get a purely  local server with no network-wide awareness  - it thinks it
is the only server in the world. Not a satisfactory setup.
 
I cannot  speak for  the EARN  Association of course,  but it  would seem
pretty suicidal to spend money developing a version that can work outside
BITNET and then give  it for free to anyone who  is interested in leaving
the network.
 
Speaking about the  US, the cost of  staying on BITNET is  a few thousand
dollars  a  year for  CREN  membership,  depending  on  the size  of  the
university, plus 1-2000  for VMNET. The membership cost is  fixed and you
can connect  as many nodes as  you want for  the same price; if  you have
local high-speed connections  (SNA, CTC's, whatever), you  will only need
one VMNET license on your "gateway"  node. Sure, there is still some room
for making a profit, but the software would have to be pretty cheap to be
competitive with the free license you get for the cost of CREN membership
- which also gives you more than just LISTSERV.
 
  Eric