🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Jun3.141524.1@cc.helsinki.fi> harmo@cc.helsinki.fi writes:

   What worries me most is how does this fit in usenet and uucp 
   policies? NTC is a state-owned business. They must make some 
   profit thru the system or it must help run their other 
   businesses more efficiently.  As I understand, that would be 
   quite un-usenethical. Does the fact that this would take place in
   one of the poorest developing coutries change anything?

Profits are generally seen as an OK byproduct of usenet as long as
that's not the only purpose of connections; there are several firms in
the USA (UUNET, PSI) which sell uucp connections for a fee and they're
generally agreed to be a good thing.  This stuff costs money to do, no
question about that.

There's a general sense that monopolistic communications practices are
bad, that is to say EUNET's past practices of discrimination against
independent networking in Europe were roundly thrashed out on
news.admin, and they eventually relented and allowed other networking
organizations to hook up without penalty.  It would be interesting to
determine whether the situation in Nepal is such that any sort of
competition for networking services is even possible, or whether the
country is in such a state that only state-owned business can afford
the bills.  

netnews also has the effect of exporting revolutions (e.g.
soc.culture.china had an impact on the student revolution).  will
soc.culture.nepal be seen as a threat, will there be restrictions on
political speech?  i dunno what the real answer is there.

--Ed