But, Judy, people want peers NOT because of traffic (as you
say this is quite irrelevant when using mail-via=distribute) but
for some other IMPORTANT reasons, mainly:
 
* NOTEBOOKs. It is not nice to have to request a notebook from
  BITNIC when the intercontinental lines are very busy. In fact
  for some countries this is a REAL problem. For example, in
  some weeks I will be in charge of the DEARN Listserv. As you
  probably know, Germany has volume-based line traffic tarifs.
  This means that we simply CANNOT afford that German users
  request notebooks from BITNIC -- we will have to create peers
  (or pseudo-peers) for *every* BITNIC list with a minimum number
  of subscribers and tell German users to request NOTEBOOks from
  DEARN, not BITNIC. Please note that this is an economical
  problem, not a question of technical or metaphysical opinions.
 
* DATABASE. When 1.5m will be distributed, every LISTSERV will
  automatically offer DATABASE capabilities for each list for which
  it keeps notebooks. The access rights for open lists (as NODMGT-L,
  LIAISON, etc) will be = ALL --> this means that every user in
  the world would be forced to do notebook database searchs on
  the BITNIC LISTSERV --> a LOT of overhead for the BITNIC
  server (and I'm not considering the message traffic
  overhead). It would be much better if every region was served
  by a near LISTSERV.
 
I will not speak of user-friendliness or about the problems for
users that receive mail from a server and have to send it to another
one, nor about list reliability when some link goes down. In any case,
I don't see what problems could be caused by normal peering. I think
that some other LISTSERV postmasters have already made such an offer
several times, but anyway I'll repeat it:
 
You can eliminate the irregularities in pseudo-peers by simply
creating full peers. You can be, if you so desire, the ONLY owner
of all lists that were created at BITNIC, and, at least in my
site, I will never touch your lists and headers, so that you
can make what you want with them (except for notebooks, of
course). I think that most postmasters for listservs that
currently have redistributions would agree on such a compromise.
On the other hand, I will offer (and probably much more people too)
any required technical assistance to set up the lists.
 
I don't think this can be made more reasonable. In any case, please
remember that for us having local lists here (as peers or as
pseudo-peers) is something we are *forced* to do.
 
Regards,
 
  Jose Maria
 
P.S. I'd like to hear the opinions of other involved postmasters.
 
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Date:         Fri, 20 Nov 87 09:07:49 EDT
Sender:       BITNIC BITNEWS List <BITNEWS@BITNIC>
From:         Judith Molka <AKLOM@BITNIC>
Subject:      Global AFD subscription & Mail-Via Distribute
To:           Jose Maria Blasco Comellas <BLASCO>
 
*** Irrelevant parts of the message deleted ***
 
BITNEWS...Mail-Via= Distribute....11/20/87
place for further discussion:  NODEMGT-L@BITNIC
 
Many of the lists on LISTSERV@BITNIC with a subscription of more than 50
members will be sending contributions using "Mail-Via= Distribute".  The
distribution function of LISTSERV allows us to use all of the LISTSERVers
on the LISTSERV backbone.  Therefore mail is distributed locally and only
one copy is sent to the next LISTSERV determined by internal algorithms to
be a distributor for subscribers in its area.  Using the Distribute function
also has the advantage of almost no administrative overhead by list owners.
 
Before using Distribute, many sites created local distribution lists for
equivalent BITNIC lists.  For example, UG-L@UGA was created to send UG-L
mail to local subscribers.  UG-L@UGA was a subscriber on the UG-L@BITNIC
list and all subscribers sent mail to the root of the UG-L list, to BITNIC.
One of the primary reasons for doing this was to reduce traffic, which
the Distribute function now handles.  Although there may be other advantages
to retaining a local sub-list, owners of sublists are welcome to send back
their subscribers and have them added to the main lists.  Last, owners of
sub-lists should set "ACK= No" for sub-lists since the numbers will not be
all encompassing and many messages are being distributed.
 
--Judith Molka, Network Services Consultant, BITNET Information Center