>                                          By the way,  I'm surprised to see so
>little reaction in LSTSRV-L about  this topic, especially from postmasters and
>still more from EARN postmasters. Don't  you care, or don't you realize what's
>being bet in this game?
 
A game! It's a game! Why didn't anybody told me it's a game. I thought
it's war. But if it's a game, I can't resist any longer :-)
 
Before I start to try getting serious: I just read by chance on ETHICS-L
a transcript of a talk by Richard Stallman (in case you never have heard
this name, here are some keywords: GNU, Free Software Foundation, author
of GNU-Emacs (which is for Unix folks what Xedit is for us VM mainframe
bigots),  a socialist for those too lazy to think unbiased about
unconventional opinions). The title of the talk is "Why Software Ownership
is bad for Society". I confess I had to grin here and there when I read
this text (which is much too long too be included here, but you may send
a GET STALLMAN TALK to Listserv at DB0TUI11 if you are interested).
 
Before you start thinking that I'm thinking that Eric is wrong in what
he is doing, let me clarify: He has written Listserv, therefore he has
the right to do whatever he like to do with the code. He may give it away
for free, he make money out of it, he may use it as a weapon against
EARN management, if he think that's necessary. It's completely his
problem. I have another policy for my software, and that's my problem.
I wouldn't like a world where only one opinion, only one holy truth,
only one Right Way of doing things is possible.
 
The trigger for all these discussions is the situation in EARN. A agree
with large parts of Christian Reichetzeder's letter on EARNTECH: we
have a management problem in EARN. Therefore the flow of information
is broken - in both directions. It's really hard to find out what's
going on here in Europe, it's much easier to be informed about the
current status and future directions of the US Internet than to learn
something about networking in Germany.
 
So what? We have a management problem on this side of the big puddle.
Big deal. I see this kind of problem all the day. I see it in my
university, I see it on the network, then I come home and read the
newspaper. Guess what, the same bullshit all over the world.
 
Whether I'm concerned about a particular class of problems depends on
how important it is to me. E.g. the fact that all "civilized" nations
are selling weapons to everybody who is in the mood to kill people
is something I can't ignore. A tiny computer network, one of many
many computer networks in this world, however, is not the center of
my life. It's more than just a toy, it is useful, but it isn't the most
important thing in my life.
 
Even if you don't believe it, I'll find my way back to "what do I think
about release 3 of plan 5 revision 7" :-)
 
Now my employer enters the scene (just kidding, look at the time stamp
of this mail :-) telling me "I don't give a damn on your personal opinion
and feeling. You have to provide electronic connectivity for our users".
Than I had to reply "Yes, Sir" - I'm still kidding - "we'll use for
now EARN/BITNET 'cause it's there, 'cause it's cheap. And we have
enough backup connectivity, so that even if it breaks, we can provide
communication all over the world". However living in a world where
it is much easier to get some bucks for additional line charges or
equipment than to hire people, I have to look how I can provide service
with a minimum of work.
 
Listserv as it is helps me to get my job done. A split, and possibly
independent development of LISTSERV vs. LISTEARN wouldn't help me.
Maybe I have misunderstood something, but I'm under the impression
that this splitting will take place in every case, and we are talking
just about how it should be done. But I'm only interested in ONE
worldwide Listserv. Why should I waste time discussing how to
implement the split. That's not my cup of tea.
 
Apparently Eric thinks he has to go this way. Ok, it's his decision
and I'm willing to respect his opinion. Apparently some EARN managers
(and probably some folks in Bitnet too) are thinking that they have
to own this useful gadget ("Ownership Of Software is ..." - see above).
I don't care, it's their problem if they didn't realize in their dreams
of a wonderful network future that the wire is nothing, but the utilities
are what make a network a useful tool.
 
Sometimes I feel old. Do you remember - when we were young - these
golden days of networking and cooperation? One guy started to write
Listserv (without asking his management) and several other guys (are
there female Listserv maintainers out there?) decided to install this
beast without asking their management (well, some of us had to ask their
powers-that-be, but at least some of us decided not to confuse their boss
by technical details of their work :-)  A lot of us did so spending many
hours of their own spare time, because it was fun. There are several people
out there who have the intellectual capabilities to implement something
like Lissterv, but most of them don't have enough continuous time slices
for such an implementation. Fortunately there was somebody who did it.
And fortunately there were enough people who helped by giving this software
a chance to show its usefulness. This was done in a spirit of world-wide
cooperation (and in some cases the "anyone for peer?" was the beginning
of a friendship).
 
If these days of cooperation are over now, then Listserv/Listearn will
become like any vendors software. Something you install, complain if
you find bugs, nothing to waste spare time.
 
Eric, the net result of your fight against management is that you start
speaking their language (this kind of "I really don't like to do this, but
please understand that I don't have any choice. I'm terrible sorry, because
I know very well that this will not improve your situation" song). It
doesn't matter if you are right or wrong in your original encounter, you
have accepted their rules. It is not our problem to solve Earns problem
in how to provide a maintained version of Listserv. Why not sell them a copy
and then look how many sites will run this EARN-owned-and-maintained version
forming their own backbone?
 
I'm only interested in a Lissterv that can be part of world-wide network.
Even if at some point in time not all nodes of Earn/Bitnet/NetNorth are
connected by NJE lines, what's the deal? Please don't tell me that the
Listserv-to-Listserv communication is impossible without NJE links.
(And by the way, Eric, why do you think that TCP/IP based transport
mechanisms will be of no interest for European nodes? Apparently you
believe much more in what EARN and DFN are telling us than I do)
 
Well, this letter is too long anyway. So let me add the reasons why I
don't have sent back the surveys. There too many questions that I can't
answer. "What do you think the quality of the LISTEARN maintenance
would be if this and that?" Sorry I can't find my 0 to 5 and -5 to 5
dice. Usually I don't trust in vendors, but even there are some exceptions,
and even between different product from the same vendor there may be
enormous differences. And Eric may fall in love next year and will nuke
all Listserv files on his disk because he needs the space to write love
poems. If I would know which numerical value between (lower bound) and
(upper bound) represents "it depends" ... And why should I rate the importance
of knowing Rexx to re-create Listserv from scratch? Every reasonable person
like me would implement it in Modula-2 (half a :-)
 
  Thomas