🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1991Jun4.044628.13092@newshost.anu.edu.au> cmf851@anu.oz.au (Albert Langer) writes:

>On the other hand we can't do much about the low telephone penetration
>and related problems like long delays providing telephone service so
>that isn't a major issue worth discussing either (unless you are 
>claiming that it is an absolute bar to productive use of email and news in
>developing countries).

OK, I'll give you that poor comms infrastructure is not necessarily an
absolute bar to somebody wanting badly enough to get networked.  It is
however, yet another hurdle to be overcome, and is going to cost time
and money, and does often prove fatal to the exercise.

> [discussion on user training, maintenance, backups etc zapped to save
> bandwidth]

>These are the sort of issues that are currently dealt with by skilled
>sysadmins on site. They are of major importance and often overlooked.
>I totally agree with the importance you attach to them as I see them
>as the main problem.

> [analogy with word-processing on cheap PC's]

This gets back to my original argument about the need for having an
institutional or organisational culture that supports such things.  It
is easy to follow the crowd and get support from other users if they are
all using PC's, but how do you get bootstrapped into this if it is still
standard practice to make use of say electric typewriters?  

> I believe it is technically feasible to provide email and news
>access in such a "transparent" and "user friendly" way that it appears
>to be merely an extension of ordinary wordprocessing that can be used
>by anybody with a computer. I also believe until that is done it will
>be very difficult to expand far beyond the present circles involved
>in developed countries or to get a real foothold in developing countries.

A sort of 'email/news engine' - just plug it in, connect your telebit
netblazer to the satellite transceiver and you have instant TCP/IP to
the Internet?  It's definitely feasible right now, if a bit costly.
As an aside, it might be productive to spin off a separate thread on
proposals for how something like this could be put together using
existing technology.  Costing would be interesting.

>>- some pre-existing computing environment with on-site skills to keep
>>  things moving through minor crises, and to provide some form of
>>  ongoing end-user training.

>I believe email and news will really "take off" only when that
>problem is solved, NOT by providing such an environment with
>on-site skills, but by eliminating the NEED for it, just as the
>need for telephone operators has been eliminated.

OK.  But then to resuscitate an argument that went on quite some time
ago in comp.dcom.telecom, you need to use the analogy of fax vs email.
Fax fulfils your requirements of ease of use and wide availability.
Email still suffers from its heritage as something that started in high
tech computer shops, where networking was a means of interactively using
a mainframe to run some or other program, and only comparatively
recently branched into news/mail - the syntax and mechanisms still show
traces of IBM 360 Job Control... with the support infrastructure that
had to go with it.

What you are looking for is the next step up the evolutionary ladder.
And don't say X.400!

>>- a desire to communicate electronically

>But if one thinks instead of a desire to communicate in writing and
>have access to print media in the most efficient, cheap and fast
>way possible, then the potential demand in developing countries is
>enormous.

Communication via 'sneaker-net' - i.e. physical transport of floppies,
is a possibility, sure, but it imposes other requirements - efficient
courier services for example, and lacks the immediacy of the type of
discussion we are now having.  You may as well write a letter.

I am not arguing against the desirability of opening up communication to
all and sundry.  The benefits definitely exist.... but there are
fundamental technical problems which can possibly be overcome, and
cultural problems that could be more intractable.

>>- support from internal management or administration for the concept of
>>  WAN, for footing the bill or dealing with those who will be footing
>>  it.

>Desirable, but PCs sneaked in behind the backs of unsupportive management and
>actively hostile MIS departments. If the PCs and telephones are in
>place, and modems are reasonably cheap, why couldn't email and news
>software as convenient as typical wordprocessors and spreadsheets
>infiltrate despite unsupportive management too?

Because an international newsfeed, even a small one, costs lots of
money. :-(  It is impossible to 'hide' such costs in any realistic way.
Also, look at the recent furore as regards the pros and cons of BITFTP
closing down - there are plenty of guys in the developed world who can't
handle the type of running costs involved.

>>Your scenario assumes that the developing world is clamouring to get
>>onto or into networking. 

>Nope I just assume that since there is LESS demand in the developing
>world, it is MORE important there to remove barriers like the need
>for skilled sysadmins - especially since they are HARDER to provide
>in developing countries.

Well, both you and I see the benefits, but isn't this tinged (and here
my heritage as a South African comes into play) by a desire to impose
something 'worthwhile' in a western sense on countries and people that
quite possibly have a different world view?  Are we justified in
assuming that say Zaire would in some way be a better place because it
had network access?  I know that this is straying from the point a bit,
but perhaps it is not totally unrelated to the reasons why many
developing countries don't seem to be too bothered.

The way networking is now, you have to 'pay your dues' and serve an
apprenticeship by struggling to get to grips with a wide variety of
technological and political odds and ends, the end result being the
ability to conduct this discussion in this forum.  But that is part and
parcel of computing evolution.  A few years down the road, it may well
be possible to have a turnkey 'email engine' that can be plunked down
anywhere in the world without requiring local system and network
administration - but it will, of neccessity, be using a different
paradigm to the one we are using now.

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