On Sat, 12 Sep 1992 14:57:00 N "H.J. Woltring, fax/tel +31.40.413 744" <WOLTRING@HNYKUN53> said: >I guess that I was wondering whether there are, and even more will be >ways in which LISTSERV and/or LISTEARN are and/or will be at the dis- >posal of non-BITNET sites in view of the suspected phasing out of BIT- >NET -- whether for free or for a fee? The present version will not work in a non-BITNET environment without BITEARN NODES and so on. It can be made to work locally, that is, one can create control files and tables which tell the server that it is part of a very small local network with just the local IBM machines, but then you get a purely local server with no network-wide awareness - it thinks it is the only server in the world. Not a satisfactory setup. I cannot speak for the EARN Association of course, but it would seem pretty suicidal to spend money developing a version that can work outside BITNET and then give it for free to anyone who is interested in leaving the network. Speaking about the US, the cost of staying on BITNET is a few thousand dollars a year for CREN membership, depending on the size of the university, plus 1-2000 for VMNET. The membership cost is fixed and you can connect as many nodes as you want for the same price; if you have local high-speed connections (SNA, CTC's, whatever), you will only need one VMNET license on your "gateway" node. Sure, there is still some room for making a profit, but the software would have to be pretty cheap to be competitive with the free license you get for the cost of CREN membership - which also gives you more than just LISTSERV. Eric