From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Wed Oct 23 2002 - 08:33:07 CDT
In <ylfzuyvaml.fsf@windlord.stanford.edu> Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> writes:
>I'm responding to Charles's statement that the only thing that anyone will
>implement is local solutions. If that's true, we're doomed regardless in
>the quest for a global solution, and nothing that we put into a standard
>will make a lick of difference.
If we provide no solutions, then it is inevitable that people will
implement local ones, and that will lead to all the problems that Marc and
others have described. Usenet will be fragmented into non-cooperating
subnets.
OTOH, if we provide a preferred solution, then there is at least the
possibility that people will follow it, which raises the probability of
having a non-fragmented Usenet from zero to some positive number. That is
bound to be an improvement. If we do the job well, then that positive
number should be quite high.
-- Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------ Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl Email: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K. PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5