🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Jun5.021549.28810@iguana.uucp>, merce@iguana.uucp (Jim Mercer) writes:
|In article <1991Jun4.151838.7885@bony1.bony.com> stevef@bony1.bony.com (Steve Faiwiszewski) writes:
|>Now, since we *PAY* for connection to uunet...there would be no harm for 
|>us calling upon the services of an MBAS.

|unless the MBAS is located on uunet AND uunet has direct links to all the
|systems it will auto-snarf files from, you can not say that you "*DONT* go
|thru anyone else's system".... since you pay uunet, and not the internet as
|a whole, you are limited to uunet and anything beyond that is a gift. MBAS 
|providers and members of the internet are under no contract to supply you
|with anything.

This strikes me as a pointless (albeit true) remark, because the same can
be said about any kind of direct internet access.  And no one in this
thread has complained about the costs ``to-the-net'' of anonymous FTP.  

I do not believe that a MBAS (when used as described above) increases the
costs to any arbitrary internet node beyond that which results from direct
internet access.  It may in fact *lower* the costs; it can enforce
copying-time restrictions thus decrease the load on the net.  

Stated another way, using a MBAS that mails the FTPd stuff *only* to
directly connected sites is no more costly to the net than using anonymous
FTP.  Since the ``net-at-large'' seems willing to support the costs of
anonymous FTP, I don't see how the ``net-at-large'' can object to such a
MBAS service.  

BTW, UUNET *does* have a MBAS:  You send them mail and ask them to FTP
something.  It works, but, from my experience, slowly and unreliably.  
-- 
---
 Robert Withrow, R.W. Withrow Associates, Swampscott MA 01907 USA
 Tel: +1 617 598 4480, Fax: +1 617 598 4430, Net: witr@rwwa.COM