Hello,
I have tried not to increase the noise level of these groups for some
months now. I tried real hard, because I always hoped for a reasonable
solution. But no way. Now I can't resist any longer the temptation.
 
*** Will this nonsense never stop? ***
 
Thanks to the EARN manglement, er, management. Thanks to Eric Thomas,
a former high level techie, now yet another mediocre politician. Thanks
for this mess. I hope, everybody is proud and happy now to have a stable
situation and some more signed (and still to be signed) paperwork.
 
Divergent versions of Listserv will cause additional work for us
techies (not to mention confused users), both on EARN *AND* BITNET.
And why? Because some childish people are not able to communicate.
And then somebody else has to reinvent wheels. This isn't the most
satisfying job if caused by technical reasons (which is not the case
here), and netiquette forbids to say what it is if caused by political
reasons (if this lack of communication can be called a political
reason).
 
Different versions and variants of software are not a problem per se.
Look at Usenet news which is another mechanism, but somewhat similar
considering purpose and complexity. There are (at least) 6 implementations
of the Netnews system (3 for Unix, 2 for VM, 1 for VMS). But the
documentation of the interface (just like in Listserv, this is the
source code of the implementations) is freely available, regardless
of race, sex, and - horribile dictu - membership of a particular network.
What I have heard about Listserv's future, however, reminds me more
on commercial non-disclosure contracts to protect trade secrets.
 
Furthermore I don't understand what an "EARN site" is. What's the
definition? Does this mean a European Internet (or UUCP) node will
qualify for the BITNET version of Listserv? And will be banned immediately
as soon as this node appears in EARN'S routing table?
 
Furthermore I don't understand why I have to sign a license agreement
for software I already have obtained under valid terms in a legal way.
 
But then, this is only a small fraction of questions I don't understand
in this crazy world.
 
  Thomas