From: andrew@wipux2.wifo.uni-mannheim.de (Andrew Wheadon)
   Sender: owner-netbsd-users@sun-lamp.cs.berkeley.edu
   To: jcargill (Jon Cargille)
   Cc: netbsd-users@sun-lamp.cs.berkeley.edu
   Subject: Re: Question about mailing list archives
   Date: Fri, 5 Nov 1993 14:26:21 -40962758 (MET)
   
   > some amount of email-list "archives" available by anonymous ftp?
   > some parts of my email-list archives on a cd-rom?
   
   As soon as you start charging for it I would have objections,
   as I like most people give out the information in the intention
   of it not being sold.

I understand that the information isn't intended to be "sold", but I
also think that's the wrong way of looking at this.

The disc will go out at a fixed price, based on how much it costs to
produce it.  The only question is whether more useful information
(mailing-list archives) can be included on it; the people who benefit
most from such inclusion are the people with poor network connections,
or none at all.  

Should those with poor network connections be denied access to the
information because the disc isn't free?

Reductio-absurdum:  Should those people who have to PAY for their
network connections be denied access?  Obviously then they're having
to PAY for the information, which you intended to be freely available.

Think of the disc as an incredibly high latency, high burst bandwidth
network connection...  ;-) RTT for packets is about 3 months, and the
average bandwidth over the course of a year is about 79 bytes per
second...   ;-)

Jon

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