If you have time and the interest please look this over and see if
there's anything you want to comment on... Lastly what the list
needs most are dates. The year of an event is fine but if you can
approximate month and year please put them in...
(BT) "biz" and "inet" hierarchies. "Gnu" hierarcy.
gnu.* came to me in the shower on the morning of 17 Mar 88. It was
established using Erik Fair's gateway code (originally written for the
inet groups). The join-up invitation went out to the news neighbors
of tut.cis.ohio-state.edu on Mon, 2 May 88 17:15:29 EDT. By ten days
later it was well-enough populated and propagated for Spaf to add it
to his "alternative news hierarchies" article. It had penetrated well
into the UK by 27 May 88, and via mcvax onto the continent (EUnet) on
18 Jul 88. Brian Reid's USENET Readership Report for June 88 reported
most gnu.* groups with over 25% propagation, and August's showed over
50% - possibly the fastest growth of any alternative hierarchy. gnu.*
underwent its first Great Renaming yesterday, perhaps a sign of
maturity :-)
I asked Spaf to add gnu.announce to the "backbone"'s list of moderated
aliases - in effect, requesting a mild policy change in the
administration of the Usenet (its administrative structure would
formally begin carrying some of the administrative freight for a few
non-Usenet hierarchies, removing their ability to claim to be
completely separate from and independent of the mainstream "Usenet
Proper"). In a precedent-setting step, the request was provisionally
approved on 14 May 88. This opened the way for the mechanized
moderation of Brian Reid's alt.gourmand and others since.
Are those enough dates, and precise enough? :-)
This page last updated on: Jul 1 09:16