🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <davecb.697778081@yorku.ca> davecb@nexus.yorku.ca (David Collier-Brown) writes:
>gamiddle@watmath.waterloo.edu (Guy Middleton) writes:
>|What is the Hamilton situation?
>
>  A lot like the Waterloo situation (:-))
>
>  An oversimplification: the sites in the Hamilton area may have to
>pay fees to McMaster for the support of the machine and lines used for
>the traffic, as well as the ONet fee if they initiate traffic onto the
>ONet.
>  This may well be perfectly fair, but the sites are understandably
>concerned about the costs being commensurate with the service.  $500
>plus monthly usage fees could be prohibitive for some.

 Dave is basically correct 'maccs' has begun charging for UUCP/USENET
 services but we at 'maccs' have attempted to deal as fairly as possible
 with our UUCP and USENET sites.

 We have been hit simultaneously with two problems:
   1) increasing traffic load on a machine paid for from teaching monies
   2) the ONet conondrum

 The solution we decided upon was to put in a workstation dedicated to
 the support of UUCP and USENET activities both on campus and off campus.
 We are configuring this system, such that for mail purposes it knows
 nothing about INTERNET mail and will permit our UUCP sites that choose
 NOT to join ONet, a non-ONet route for mail.  This system will also hold
 USENET news and feed campus and off-campus sites.  ONet members will 
 still have to call 'maccs' to benefit from both INTERNET and UUCP mail
 service.
 
 This solution isn't perfect but for us it accomplishes several things:

   1) takes almost all the 'mail' and 'news' burden off of our teaching
      machine that has been overloaded over the last few years.

   2) allows us to offer 'news' service and 'mail' services to both
      ONet and non-ONet members.

 If the choice came, between using 'maccs' for teaching needs, or
 using 'maccs' for UUCP and USENET feeds, it's obvious we would have
 had to end the latter.  So a solution like we have developed would
 have had to have happened regardless of the ONet situation.  We have
 attempted to provide a feasible option in particular for our small
 sites, and DO NOT require them to become ONet members.

 Up until January 1, 1992, we have NOT charged for UUCP or USENET
 services...I believe we are one of the few local universities not
 to do so.  But, to finance this solution, we began charging for
 both UUCP and USENET services both to OFF campus and ON campus
 sites.  Also, to get the startup capital, several of our larger
 sites (both on- & off-campus) agreed to prepay 3 years...we are
 grateful to these sites for this.

 Dave suggested that the small user might have to pay both $500
 ONet fee and a monthly fee.  We charge the basic UUCP mail
 connection only $15/mth or $180/year...this is about the cost
 of your monthly telephone bill.  If they choose to join ONet,
 they would additionally have a $500 ONet membership fee.

 Surprisingly, we have lost very few downstream sites...a couple
 of UUCP mail sites, one off-campus USENET site, and a couple of
 on-campus USENET sites.  Some of our off-campus sites chose to
 join ONet, many did not (especially the smaller ones).  From the
 beginning, we have tried to be as fair as possible with these sites,
 but we did have to deal with the increasing load that mail/news
 was placing on our teaching machine, and the need to become
 ONet compliant...as required in McMaster's ONet agreement.
 What we came up with is a compromise, actually more work for us
 than if we had forced all our sites to become ONet members.

 Finally, to solve the ONet conondrum we came up with a hardware
 solution...whereby we physically separate our mail over two systems,
 one knows about INTERNET and one doesn't.  Even this is a bit awkward.
 A better solution would be a version of the Unix mailer that would
 be sensitive to ONet membership status, and route mail from either
 ONet or non-ONet members such that it complies with ONet rules...
 even now this sort of mailer would be useful to us.

>
>--dave (DANGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON!
>	the above is third-hand information) c-b
>-- 
>David Collier-Brown,  | davecb@Nexus.YorkU.CA | lethe!dave
>72 Abitibi Ave.,      | "Everybody's going to lie truthfully
>Willowdale, Ontario,  |  in their own little way"
>CANADA. 416-223-8968  |     -- George Lewis on benchmarks

 I appologise for the length of this article, but I felt many
 of these points had to be made as we were being SINGED a bit.

 Chris Bryce
 Facility Manager
 Department of Computer Science and Systems
 McMaster University
-- 
Chris Bryce                     |        chris@maccs.dcss.McMaster.CA
Computer Science & Systems Dept |  uucp: chris@maccs.uucp
McMaster University             |bitnet: chris@mcmaster.bitnet
HAMILTON Ontario Canada L8S 4K1 |   Tel: (416) 525-9140 ext: 3445