On Mon, 27 Nov 89 15:03:34 EDT Alain Auroux said:
>>3) An EARN site  running as backbone server must run LISTEARN.  ..............
>
>This is the right interpretation.
Well, from ongoing discussions on other  lists I can say that this realization
is not wide spread.  E.g. " .. it's not correct that EARN  doesn't want you to
run LISTSERV by Eric Thomas. It's only a recommendation that THE INTERNATIONAL
EARN-NODES ... should run the one supported by Turgut. This recommendation has
been made  with the background  that EARN PAYS  ONE PERSON (Turgut)  EXTRA FOR
THAT PURPOSE." (uppercase by me).
> (.. sanctions ..) It  might be (but this is just  a personal guess) removing
>from the LISTEARN backbone.
>The reason for the NOG to propose the Listserver directive and for the BoD to
>accept it is the following:
>  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.
As Eric  pointed out this is  a matter of where  you get the border  - and the
load. There are two points worth mentioning:
1) The directive  - in the given form and  forgetting all misinterpretations -
   will not establish a LISTEARN only  backbone within EARN. EARN may face the
   situation that the LISTSERV (I'm  referring to the BITNET/NetNorth version)
   backbone still extends into EARN - a scenario EARN possibly doesn't want to
   come true. That's what I meant with hidden meaning.
2) If  EARN  fails  to  have  LISTGATE  working  before the  backbones  become
   incompatible the load is put on the  CUNY-MOP link. You will of course have
   severe problems in the other direction in any case.
 
I volunteered for running both versions and I had word from at least one other
postmaster  that he'd  do the  same (don't  know if  this is  still true)  for
developement and testing  purposes. It's not distrust in Turgut  that I (and 9
other sites) opted for 1.6, I explained in my previous letter.
 
>
>In addition, I remind you that you are commenting on a private mail sent
>by error to a list, thanks to the 'REPLY' command. I personally would feel
>a bit uneasy to do that |
For the sake of the argument I could  start an inquiry how many of the readers
know that it was  sent by mistake (and how many know  that the introduction of
Turgut's 'dirty talk'-letter was referring to  that). Since this is drawn into
the eyes  of the public  I will also defend  myself here: I  received Turgut's
second letter BEFORE  the mistakenly sent reply (thanks to  the working of the
network) and from the text I got NO IDEA that the letter replying to Alain was
meant.
Again I  apologize for not  seeing that  but I don't  feel uneasy and  I would
suggest that  the guilt is  evenly divided among me  counted with a  weight of
two, the  REPLY's working, the  network's working, the  one who sent  with the
mis-pointing Reply-To:  tag and  the one  who did  the reply  without noticing
where it is going to.
 
Oh well, sometimes I  behave like a child - learning that  I get more response
when crying out, I do it instead of keeping cool and controlled. But I neither
want to  flame particular persons  nor is it  my intention to  make revolution
against EARN committees.
I just  don't understand why  a thing running  smoothly for years  suddenly is
causing a lot  of headaches for a  lot of people. And I'm  still not convinced
that the current  course of actions is  the right one. But  maybe I'm fighting
windmills ...
>
>You lost| I took just a week-end.
Indeed !!! :-) .. and I don't count the weekend so it's less than one day.
>Alain Auroux
 
Christian