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Grex > Coop6 > #10: Should Grex be running a POP server? | |
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| 25 new of 131 responses total. |
carson
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response 50 of 131:
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Sep 28 17:19 UTC 1994 |
STeve, I think I agree with your points for the most part, but there's
one thing that comes to mind that makes a POP server not so "bad".
I don't think Grex is going to stick a big sign out front saying
"there's a POP server here! come get an account and tie up our
connection!", so the people who would use POP here will have to have
some way of finding out it's here. My guess is that it would be word-
of-mouth, which means hearing it from someone who is already here,
and doing something else on Grex. Why wouldn't that same word-of-
mouth bring those people to whatever else the first person was doing
on Grex?
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carson
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response 51 of 131:
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Sep 28 17:20 UTC 1994 |
(#49 slipped in.)
re #47, 49: why not install a MUD then?
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robh
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response 52 of 131:
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Sep 28 17:57 UTC 1994 |
The problem, carson, is that word-of-mouth done on the Internet
is a lot faster and more powerful than you might think. Sure,
we'll tell a few people, maybe only five or ten. Then maybe
one of them goes to some other BBS's they're on, and tells them
to check out this free POP server. And maybe someone posts
to a few Usenet groups mentioning it. And now several hundred
people know. And they all post on other BBS's, post to Usenet,
stick things on their WWW pages, maybe someone starts up a
"Free Internet Access List" which gets distributed via FTP and
Usenet. And now tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands,
of people know about it. Sure, only a small percentage will
even consider using it, but how many hundreds of people do
we want using us only for POP?
That's the problem with the Internet - it's just beyond anyone's
grasp how big and fast this thing really is, and how quickly
things can snowball.
A week or two ago, someone wrote-help to me, first asking me why he
couldn't use IRC here (a common question, sad to say), and then
asked where he could find a system which *did* offer free IRC.
I shudder to think what would happen to any system which offered free
IRC to anyone, even if they didn't advertise it.
As far as incoming telnet goes - earlier today, a young lady from
Chile wrote-help to me, and between her limited English and
my limited Spanish, we were able to communicate. She's doing a
thesis on BBS's around the world for one of her CS classes.
She also wants to set up a public access BBS at her university.
So we'll be talking for a while, I'll tell her all the wonderful
things about Grex, and hopefully we'll be helping to create
another place for people to talk, conference, etc. in the world.
This strikes me as a good thing.
One final idea - if people want free POP, why don't they just go to M-Net
and get it there, and leave us the f*ck alone? M-Net can have
them as far as I'm concerned.
<robh is obviously more concerned about this than he thought earlier.>
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kentn
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response 53 of 131:
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Sep 28 18:05 UTC 1994 |
re 50: Word of mouth on the Internet tends to end up on a list of
"Free Internet Services" available on a WWW server someplace. I
agree, in the short term, the people using a POP server would most
likely be current Grexers. In the long term, I couldn't even begin
to guess what will happen (other than a certain economic effect in
regard to the time it takes to use Grex, which will turn away anyone
who believe it takes "too long"; Grex should settle down to some sort
of equilibrium, at least until new bandwidth capacity is added). Will
we be turning away critical participants, though? (Like it or not,
every organization has a "core" of people who get things done. If
they leave and the slack is not picked up by others...decay sets in).
re 47: In spite of the assumptions that remmers mentions, you are
asking the Big Question: what do we want for Grex? This is something
that has been discussed but I don't believe has ever (or probably
will ever be) well-agreed upon. We can't even seem to get a consensus
over whether the services Grex provides (such as mail, bbs, finger)
are there to contribute to a sense of Grexian community, whether that
Grexian community is tied to a larger community (and how to tie it),
etc.
In the absence of any consensus or policy (formal or informal), we are
left to experiment by trial and error. Even with some sort of policy,
we might be forced to experiment. Our recently adopted Internet policy
allows for changes in bandwidth-using service provisions. Unless we
accept (quite blindly, it seems in this case) a staff opinion that
a POP server will swamp the link, we are left with a trial as the most
reasonable way to answer everyone's questions.
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kentn
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response 54 of 131:
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Sep 28 18:06 UTC 1994 |
(52 slipped in)
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pegasus
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response 55 of 131:
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Sep 28 19:24 UTC 1994 |
Kent says:
Our recently adopted Internet policy
allows for changes in bandwidth-using service provisions. Unless we
accept (quite blindly, it seems in this case) a staff opinion that
a POP server will swamp the link, we are left with a trial as the most
reasonable way to answer everyone's questions.
I agree with this statement. I agree that people will most likely
just use POP for sucking email, just like most people will use the
link to suck newsgroups, but there are enough who won't to enrich Grex,
sprititually and monetarily.
Perhaps that's what the arguement comes down to...how many people to
suck resources for how many people to enrich Grex? 100 to 1? 500 to 1?
These are sort of arbitrary numbers..but I hope the idea comes across.
Pattie
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jep
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response 56 of 131:
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Sep 28 21:47 UTC 1994 |
M-Net has had POP since about June. I found out about it last week.
(I'm a root on M-Net.) About a half-dozen accounts are using it so far;
except for occasional log messages, I haven't noticed any system impact
on M-Net.
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carson
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response 57 of 131:
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Sep 29 00:20 UTC 1994 |
finally. :)
re word-of-mouth: I can't believe that anything which puts Grex in the
minds of computer users can be all bad. I'll agree to disagree.
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srw
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response 58 of 131:
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Sep 29 04:53 UTC 1994 |
Thanks, John. I started out neutral on this question, but I have come to
believe that it is in our best interest to experiment with a POP server.
There is a risk that it will attract more mail users to Grex than we have
already, but I think we already have a large number who only do mail.
I think we should send them mail from time to time to remind them of what
they're missing, but that's besides the point. Every one of those
mail users who switches to POP will reduce the load on Grex.
I don't understand the fear of experimenting shown in this thread.
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rcurl
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response 59 of 131:
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Sep 29 06:52 UTC 1994 |
Me neither. Funny thing is, our sysop in my department has tried to
get me to use Eudora, but I haven't felt much inclination, since I
always do other things on the system when I sign on (and, there isn't
even a conference there, unless I telnet to it).
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steve
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response 60 of 131:
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Sep 30 01:02 UTC 1994 |
Rane, in a controlled environment, a POP system makes a whole
lot of sense. The environment you're in is also a factor of 50
faster, too.
But, rather than stand in the way of things, I'm willing to
try it, and hopefully we can determine the system/link load that
it presents. I don't think the fact that M-Net is using it has
much relevance for us--we seem to be growing faster than they are,
and, because of our much more liberal policies on technical things
(more liberal than ANYONE on the net, I should hasten to add), I'm
still afraid that we're going to run into problems with this, in terms
of the load on the link.
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raven
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response 61 of 131:
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Sep 30 03:49 UTC 1994 |
I still don't quite understand how the POP server works, would I need
a slip connection from a service provider like IC net? Or would my front
end say Eudora dial directley into Grex?
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srw
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response 62 of 131:
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Sep 30 06:28 UTC 1994 |
For your machine at home, you would definitely need a SLIP or PPP
connection. If you are accessing via a machine on the LAN and if
the LAN has an IP router to the internet, then you are already set.
The people who first inquired about this have such access via a
connection at Oakland U. and/or at work.
Even if we could agree today that this was something we should try,
there are a number of higher priorities for staff at the moment.
I wouldn't expect to see it real soon because of that.
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rcurl
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response 63 of 131:
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Sep 30 06:50 UTC 1994 |
To expand a little on Steve's explanation - you need the software so
that when you dial in to a network server, *you* become a host on
the net, with a temporary IP address, and your machine generates and
receives the IP/TCP "packets". The local software that does this
on a Mac is called MacTCP (what is it on a PC?), and you also need
an interface to the net server, which is MacPPP. The amazing thing
about it is that you can have simultaneous connections going at the
same time - you could be on both Eurdora and Telnet to grex at the
same time, while running an Archie search, and downloading Mosaic
pages from Switzerland. It gets pretty heady. (Sorry - I got carried
way beyond POP, in my enthusiasm....)
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steve
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response 64 of 131:
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Sep 30 17:07 UTC 1994 |
Oh, !&*^#%$(! I don't think we can do this, then. THere is
a part in our agreement with ICnet that states that we cannot
"extend" net accessability to other people. So for example, it
isn't allowable for me to set up a PPP connection to my home machine
and get on the net "through" Grex.
I'd forgotten all about this during the discussion here. Is
there another connection mechanism that lets clients connect with
a POP server that only connects to POP? I doubt it highly. Hmmm.
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kentn
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response 65 of 131:
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Sep 30 18:04 UTC 1994 |
Well, that's one way to make a decision on it. If our agreement with
ICNet precludes this type of use, then we'd better stick to our
agreement (unless we feel it can be amicably re-negotiated).
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scg
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response 66 of 131:
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Sep 30 21:45 UTC 1994 |
I thought the point was that people would come in for the POP server
through other places, so Grex wouldn't be extending net accessability to them.
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srw
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response 67 of 131:
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Oct 1 02:03 UTC 1994 |
Absolutely, scg.
Rane's explanation was well intended, but it confused you, STeve.
Rane has access to Merit's PPP server through his position at U of M.
He can call Merit, connect his Mac to the net, and POP to Grex over the
internet. With Merit, this requires a uniqname or a Merit authentication
account. Rane was not proposing that we provide PPP service ourselves.
That is something we cannot do, as you correctly point out.
The only people who could benefit from a POP server are (1) those who use it
from their office or school which has provided them with an internet
connection via LAN for their desktop machine, and (2) those who have a way
to connect their home machine or portable computer to the internet
via some SL/IP or PPP provider such as MSen, ICNet, or Merit (but not Grex).
BTW: Merit also offers an unauthenticated PPP service, but it only supports
telnet and ftp to Merit hosts, so it is of no value.
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steve
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response 68 of 131:
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Oct 1 02:22 UTC 1994 |
I think I should refrain from thinking when I'm home sick.
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rcurl
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response 69 of 131:
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Oct 1 06:33 UTC 1994 |
Steve is correct, yet Steve was incorrect. How could that be?
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popcorn
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response 70 of 131:
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Oct 1 13:00 UTC 1994 |
Because this is Grex, home of a thousand Steves. :)
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jfk
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response 71 of 131:
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Oct 10 14:26 UTC 1994 |
If people are going to be reading their mail over the link anyways, I
don't see where a pop server will increase the bandwidth used. It will
change the pattern (one short burst as opposed to a longer login with
interactive text). Because it requires people to have ppp/slip or
real internet access already, I don't see it as being a big demand from
the net at large. Most of our pop traffic is from people who dialup
merit with their pop client and pick up mail.
Pop mail was a drop-in on bsdi I believe, and has functioned without
any staff intervention since it was installed.
Contrary to something thaw was said way back there, I believe UMCC
members can now get pop mail.
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cicero
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response 72 of 131:
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Oct 12 05:29 UTC 1994 |
Well, I keep going back and forth on this one. Everyone's arguments seem to
make sense. I dont know what to think. A test seems like a logical step,
but it also seems like it could bring BIG problems and produce virtually
no benefit. I guess I'm staying neutral on this!
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srw
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response 73 of 131:
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Oct 13 06:04 UTC 1994 |
I am in kind of the same state of mind. It seems like a nice addition
to our offerings, but it's already available elsewhere. If people are
only going to do mail, what advantage would they get by doing it on
Grex instead of, say, m-net? If folks who wanted to use a pop server
went over and did it on M-net, that would move that much mail demand
off of our overburdened internet link.
On the other hand, we could limit it to members, or we could send
regular advertising mail to those who only use mail on Grex, to advertise
the conferences and other interesting features of Grex, thus encouraging
them to log in in addition to using POP.
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remmers
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response 74 of 131:
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Oct 13 09:13 UTC 1994 |
I don't consider the fact that something's available elsewhere to be
any reason at all not to do it ourselves. Just about every piece of
software that Grex has is available elsewhere.
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