I'm moving here from the Microsoft.public groups
in [Windows 98]
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From: Steven Saunderson on 2 Jun 2010 19:14 On Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:54:07 -0500, anonymous(a)anonymous.com wrote: > Hello everyone. > I'm moving here from the Microsoft.public groups Wow, this is exciting. Were you shunning this group previously ? Cheers, -- Steven
From: 98 Guy on 2 Jun 2010 20:00 Steven Saunderson wrote: > > Hello everyone. > > I'm moving here from the Microsoft.public groups > > Wow, this is exciting. Were you shunning this group previously ? What I think is the case is that many people that read and post to the microsoft.public set of groups do so either via microsoft's web interface, or they do it with a direct connection to microsoft's usenet server. In either case, for those people, that's the closest they come to experiencing usenet - which is to say only the microsoft.public set of groups - and most likely only a few groups for any given person. They by-and-large do not know they are interacting with usenet (albeit in a bastardized way). So because Microsoft has begun the process of shutting down it's usenet server, these people are flailing around, trying to figure out what to do or how to deal with this. So there will be an influx of win-98 users that will come here. Why they weren't here before is as I explained above.
From: Steven Saunderson on 2 Jun 2010 21:26 On Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:00:23 -0400, 98 Guy <98(a)Guy.com> wrote: > So because Microsoft has begun the process of shutting down it's usenet > server, these people are flailing around, trying to figure out what to > do or how to deal with this. Will the Microsoft newsgroups actually disappear ? Isn't there a Usenet administration that decides what groups exist ? Whether individual servers support them or not is another matter. The possible difference with MS groups is that the name starts with Microsoft so if they demand the groups disappear then perhaps the administration will comply. Cheers, -- Steven
From: Auric__ on 2 Jun 2010 22:21 On Thu, 03 Jun 2010 01:26:10 GMT, Steven Saunderson wrote: > On Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:00:23 -0400, 98 Guy <98(a)Guy.com> wrote: > >> So because Microsoft has begun the process of shutting down it's usenet >> server, these people are flailing around, trying to figure out what to >> do or how to deal with this. > > Will the Microsoft newsgroups actually disappear ? Not really, but it depends on your server's admin. > Isn't there a Usenet administration that decides what groups exist ? TINC. > Whether individual servers support them or not is another matter. Exactly. > The possible difference > with MS groups is that the name starts with Microsoft so if they demand > the groups disappear then perhaps the administration will comply. As long as there is traffic in the microsoft.* groups, admins are likely to leave them be. -- If you don't get the joke, you're probably the punchline.
From: 98 Guy on 3 Jun 2010 00:02
Steven Saunderson wrote: > Will the Microsoft newsgroups actually disappear ? Here's the deal: Microsoft has never had an "official" relationship with anything that might resemble an authoritative usenet body. To be honest, I don't really know *who* exactly is their primary usenet peer. What we have instead is some guy named Julien �LIE that has taken the role of sending out the appropriate control messages that enable new groups to appear on usenet in-step with their creation by Microsoft on their own server. So when Microsoft creates the new group "Microsoft.public.windows.Vista" on their server, Julien takes notice of this and sends out the appropriate control message that is picked up by other usenet "entities". By "entities", I mean other operators of usenet servers, and other quasi-authoritative bodies such as the ISC.org. ISC.org compiles it's own list of "approved" usenet groups. So Julien's task up until now has been to be the trusted source of "housekeeping" information on the microsoft.public.what-ever set of groups, and as I mention it was always generally assumed that this task was to *add* new groups over time. Last November or December, Microsoft performed a major "cleaning" and removed over 500 newsgroups on it's server. Many of them were non-english-language groups, many of them for obscure microsoft products, and many had little to no traffic for some time. Some examples contrary to that were: - microsoft.public.win98.display.multi-monitor - microsoft.public.win98.fat32 So Julien did infact issue the appropriate control messages to remove those 500+ groups from usenet, and those server operators that choose to honor those control messages (one way or another) did infact remove those groups from their server. This is basically an automatic process for most of them - it's not like they were aware of this situation. In the above two examples, the usenet server I'm using to post this message (aioe.org) followed the ISC list and removed those two groups from it's server. So that was late last year. Then in early May, Microsoft drops this bomb that they're going to phase out the operation of their usenet server, starting June 1 and ending October 1. This has sparked a debate in some circles as to how to generally handle this situation. One side-track pertains to the idea or the question of whether or not it's Julien's role to "administrate" these groups out of existance on usenet. He seems adament that he thinks it's his role, and I believe he's going to do it, and by doing it basically end his role or responsibility for overseeing these groups. Many people have gotten side-tracked with the idea that Microsoft somehow controls these groups (either technically or legally) and that indeed the microsoft groups will disappear from the world-wide usenet because Microsoft wants them to disappear and can make them disappear. That is quite a false understanding. The microsoft.public news groups will disappear on the world-wide usenet if: a) Julien �LIE issues the requisite check-group and/or rm-group control messages, and b) Julien's control messages are honored (directly or indirectly) by some significant fraction of world-wide usenet servers. > Isn't there a Usenet administration that decides what groups exist ? There is, when it comes to the "big-8" hierarchies, of which the microsoft.public set of groups is not part of. > Whether individual servers support them or not is another matter. As I described above. > The possible difference with MS groups is that the name starts > with Microsoft so if they demand the groups disappear then > perhaps the administration will comply. And Microsoft can also ask that no books, magazines or newspaper articles be written about them, or titled after them? I think not. The names of usenet newsgroups are not anyone's legal property. They are a form of free speech. Microsoft can no more ask or demand that newsgroups containing "microsoft" in the group-name be removed from usenet any more than they can ask all librarians to remove any or all entries in their card catalogs that have "microsoft" printed on the index cards. |