On 03/11/2002 8:39 AM, Erik Corry wrote: > Jay Garcia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> My statement/reply was in reference to the physical location of the >> server that hosts these groups. It's in Mountain View California and >> this SERVER feeds usenet. > > A newsgroup isn't hosted on a specific host.
It is on this one. This is a "private" server that feeds to usenet. > A mail-to-news gateway may be, but that is a different matter. > > There may be an organisation that is in charge of a usenet > name space, like netscape.* but to call that `hosting it on > a server' seems only to confuse. See above > People in this discussion seem to think a usenet group has > 'upstream' and 'downstream'. It doesn't. The propagation > algorithm is flood based and not hierarchical. There's no > authoritative server + echos/mirrors/etc., it is a peer-to- > peer protocol. Correct, but this isn't "usenet". It "feeds" to usenet. > Bottom line, if Netscape's server disappeared then the news > groups could continue to exist, though the people who used > the Netscape server to access them would have to find a new > one. That would include users of a mail gateway. > > None of this applies to newsgroups that are hosted on one > machine only and not shared with the rest of Usenet. This > doesn't apply to the mozilla newsgroups. > When I discussed this with Markus Bauer, the news sysadmin at Netscape, the way I understand it is not the way you present it. I could be wrong but I don't think so since I'm relying totally on his explanation. I know what usenet is and how it works as I've been in this business since 1990 but have never hosted a private news server before. I've always leased from uunet. Also, according to your're explanation, if we list groups from our ISP, then these very same groups should appear. They don't ... Why not? It's "usenet" isn't it? -- Jay Garcia - Netscape Champion Novell MCNE-5/CNI-Networking Technologies-OSI UFAQ - http://www.UFAQ.org
