> 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