Conference 7.286::digital

    
    	One of the best ideas I've ever heard ! Ranks right up there with
    the idea of selling to interested businesses that currently wasted
    space on the front of most postage stamps. Be good to yourself, Mr.T.
    Folks like you made Digital what it was/is, is/was.
    
    						Peace,
    
    						-RAM-

    	Many of the files that are thought of as "employee interest"
    actually have a lot of information that is valuable both inside and
    outside the company. For example, while BONNET::VALBONNE contains a
    lot of rubbish, and a fair amount of out-of-date information, it also
    contains a lot of information of assistance to anyone relocating to
    or from the south of France. This information could be sold to
    companies like Arthur Andersen that are relocating a lot of people here
    at the moment. It might take a bit of filtering, but discussions about
    how to obtain work permits, which are the best schools/garages/house
    agencies, ... how to pay French taxes,

    I've often felt that, for example, JOYOFLEX had the makings of many
    MANY books, monographics, and/or articles on puns, poetry, wordplay,
    etymology, philology, puns, paronomasiacs, and -- yes, even puns.  Many
    of which Tom has committed over the years.  Thanks Tom -- you will be
    SORELY missed.  Great idea, too!!!!
    

    I -cannot- believe this coincidence -- I was just thinking about this
    all last week, since I too will probably be laid off.
    
    And I can't stand the thought of all this information (and networking
    capability we've all shared with each other via NOTES) going away by
    accident or neglect.  Think of all the wisdom and archived knowledge
    represented in these conferences!
    
    What would it take to preserve and continue these conferences?  PLEASE
    POST OR MAIL ME YOUR SUGGESTIONS.  I dearly want to see our growing
    community of ex-Deccies continue to have some manner of e-mail and
    NOTES-equivalent capability.  Icing on the cake would be to
    preserve/maintain all that data.
    
    Just last week, I had contacted DELPHI (an on-line internet services
    company) to research their NOTES equivalent, called a "Forum".  From
    what I've heard, however, it doesn't seem to come close to what NOTES
    can provide.  I'll post more when I've looked at it.
    
    Tom, consider me "on-board" the working crew to preserve our information.
    
    Who else would care to join us and make something happen?
    
    regards,
    Michael Hyde
    SETC::HYDE
    Compuserve #: 74107,1205

    
    
    does this means that one of those days some people outside DEC will
    be able to read what each one here wrote (including my notes too?)?
    
    i dont think i agree on this. i dont want my thoughts and writings
    in here to end up in cowala'lambor or some where i have no idea where. 
    these are private writings and i want them to stay this way. PRIVATE !!
    
    if DEC decides to sell these notes to the public, it should ask first 
    for permission from the authors befor doing this.
    
    if selling these notes is true, i'll will DEFINITLY stop writing in here.
    
    no ifs and buts about it.
                   
    \nasser
    
    

    	But the code you write, \nasser, is sold by DEC all over the world.
    Why shouldn't they market your other outpourings that have certainly
    been contributed using DEC computer resources, and possibly even DEC
    time (I am writing this on a Sunday ;-)?
    
    	The main problem I see with a scheme like this is that most
    employee interest notes files are stuffed with notes of much less
    commercial value than those of \nasser, and it would take some
    editorial work to make them commercially valuable.
    
    	DEC should sell off all employee interest notes files (including
    this one) for the profit of the shareholders, and then we could start
    again with new, clean employee interest notes files. If you're
    desperate, the first thing to sell is something of no perceived value.
    
    	Dave
    

                         Nice "two-bank shot," Dave! :-)
    

I suggested to the Delta program a few years back that EINFs be partitioned
off onto an "employee network" (with a gateway) with access during non-work
hours a benefit to current employees and continuous access available by
subscription to current and past employees.  The idea was also that 6.54 and
the ban on "personal notesfiles" (ones NOT open to everybody who asked for
access) would not apply on this network.  Never heard back on that idea.

- paul

    Well, Nasser, you will be writing for a smaller audience with a
    shrinking sense of humor.  Certainly Digital owns the rights to all the
    notes you've written up to now.  If anything like my fantasy ever came
    off and if I were involved in it (all very unlikely), I'd certainly try
    to devise a way to share the benefits with everyone who contributed. 
    On the other hand, separating the sludge from the valuable and finding
    ways to distribute it all should also be compensated.
    
    Someone at DEC, on the other hand, is just going to nuke 'em all one
    day and they'll never be seen again or benefit anyone.
    
    Nasser, please look for "The Education of H*Y*M*A*N*K*A*P*L*A*N" to see
    what can happen with your kind of style.  Given the changes in the US,
    there ought to be a great market for, pardon the expression, "immigrant
    humor".  
    

    May we discuss and build on Paul's idea in .8?  The "employee network"
    idea, with gateway, to house Employee Interest Notes Files as a benefit
    to current employees, and as a service (with nominal subscription) to
    past employees.
    
    What would it cost to set up such a system for the most used notesfiles?
    Paul, did you ever create an estimate of the costs involved?
    
    What kind of system would we need?  (Disk storage space, how many
    concurrent users, what communication h/w would be needed, phone line
    charges, tape drives for backup, etc...)
    
    How would we go about calculating the current cost to Digital to house
    the current notes files?  In terms of storage, and communication costs
    to access?  What of the labor and materials incurred to back up the
    files?
    
    What do you think people would pay for such a service?  $10 a month? 
    $20?  What would YOU pay?  (Me, personally, I'd love to pay on the
    order of $20 a month for, say, an hour a day max access, 5K to 10K
    blocks diskquota, plus access to DCL and MAIL_VAXNOTES and ENOTES type
    procedures to allow me to create batch query programs.)
    
    How big a market for such a service is there?  IS there a market for
    such a service?
    
    Who would we go to, to propose such an idea?
    
    How could we design it to create a fiscal benefit to Digital, and to
    make it self-supporting within, say, the first year?  Or six months?
    
    Could Digital reap any write-off type benefit by donating the initial
    equipment?  The service, after started, would be a long-term Digital
    customer thereafter.
    
    Thoughts?
    
    thanks,
    Michael Hyde

    .-1
    
    humm... why not like just make a new group on the internet for DECeeees
    to us, any one can access the internet even if you are not a DECeeee, 
    ex-DECeeees whos want to stay in touch with current DECeeees can 
    subscribe to compu-serve and access the internet.
    
    
    \bye
    \nasser

Re: .10

Shudder...this is beginning to sound more and more like timesharing and we
all know that "timesharing is dead", happened sometime in the early 80's I
think, it died along with some language called COBOL if I remember correctly
(-;

-Terry

>..., it died along with some language called COBOL if I remember correctly

	Just what I always wanted to do, program in a dead language ;-).

    Tom,
    
    I'm sad to here that you will be leaving this company. I wish you
    luck. I'm really sorry to see that this company is letting another
    top quality person leave.
    
    Good Luck Tom
    
    Mike

RE: .12

	Compuserve, Delphi, America Online, all of those are just
	timesharing systems with a fancy user interface. Client/Server
	to many people is just timesharing with different clothes.

						mike

    >does this means that one of those days some people outside DEC will
    >be able to read what each one here wrote (including my notes too?)?
    
	Anyone with internet access can read notes posted here.  Our dirty 
	digital laundry is aired daily for the world to see.

	/hope this helps

	/bye

But the notes conferences that are available on the internet news readers are 
*not* available to *everyone* on the internet.  They are news groups that only 
Digital nodes can get to (unless someone lied to me....)

Dave

.17 is correct.  However, some Digital employees seem to think it's perfectly
ok to either forward notes to non-employees (Boston Globe writers, etc.) or
to allow them to access the notes through the employee's account.  I have
spoken to several customers who tell me they regularly read notesfiles such
as DIGITAL, MARKETING, etc.  Of course they won't tell me how they're getting
access.

				Steve

>	Anyone with internet access can read notes posted here.  Our dirty 
>	digital laundry is aired daily for the world to see.

All I can say to that is, BullSH*T!.  Digital Conferences are relayed into
USENET but into a heirarchy that stays entirely within Digital.  They are
retributed to non-Digital machines.

    .-1
    
    gee whize, ok , take it easy ! what's the big deal? the guy thought
    any one can read our notes file, he is wrong, so what? nothing to give
    yourself an ulcer about !
    
    go have one on me and cool down !
    
    \bye
    \nasser
    ps. why are DECeees so on edge these day ?
    
    

    A few of the EINFs really do contain valuab;e information; perhaps a
    hypertext CDROM (Notes is too crufty for the public) of the Best of
    HOMEWORK, for instance, would be valuable.  Nothing like /Nasser's
    notes, though.  THey're priceless.  Or is it valueless?  I forget :-).
    
    Seriously, NOTES is an internal thingie, but needn't be.  DECnet is an
    enterprise-only (no global address space, except Phase V but that's
    really rare) protocol, but TCP/IP is huge and open.  Nowadays NOTES can
    run over TCP/IP.  We _could_ have a gateway between the .dec.com domain
    and the outside world, allowing Notes clients and servers outside of
    the gateway to connect to Notes clients and servers inside Digital,
    on a per-group basis.  It's just a SMOP.  Heck, it might get NOTES to
    sell better!  It has potential if marketed right.  OF course, this is
    Digital/DEC so nothing sensible like that will ever happen.

    Vaxnotes, as an application, is without peer in the industry.  Many
    people have struggled to sell their customers products with a whole lot 
    less functionality.  I would thinkthat, except for the price of
    implementation, it would make an ideal BBS product.  Isn't that what WE
    use it for?  Out there somewhere, right this moment, there are dozens
    of people trying to make their windows/ps2/sunos do what we take for
    granted (and now take fearful offense to a possible withdrawl).  The
    product is mature, solid, runs on any vax.  If we4 could only get the
    price down where it needs to be to be competitive...

    
    	SO WHO ARE YOU ACCUSING OF BEING ON EDGE THEN!!!!!!!
    
    	I HOPE YOU DON"T MEAN ME _ I AM NOT ON EDGE AND DON"T YOU FORGET IT
    NASSER!!!!!
    
    				Malcolm.  ;^) ;^) ;^) (just to make sure)

    I'm pretty sure this layoff will mean a Desperado revival.
    
    				tompar@world.std.com

    That, at least, is good news. Now to get my own alternate net access.

    			Alfred

>Vaxnotes, as an application, is without peer in the industry.  Many
>people have struggled to sell their customers products with a whole lot
>less functionality.  I would thinkthat, except for the price of
>implementation, it would make an ideal BBS product.  Isn't that what WE
>use it for?  ...

To me, VAXnotes is just another BBS system. A darn good one, but still
just a piece of software. The power of the product and value of the
conferences came about due to Digitals internal network. No conference,
including this one, would be nearly as valuable if they existed only on a
standalone vax tucked away somewhere.

Lee

    It was established some year ago (amid great furor) that
    employee-interest notes files are "for internal use only".  That
    is the understanding with which people have been posting notes all
    these years.  Hence, I believe DEC could *not* legally sell the
    contents of any existing employee-interest notes file unless it
    obtained permission of 100% of the people whose notes would be
    included.

    A file could be edited to delete notes from people from whom
    permission could not be obtained, but can you see DEC spending any such
    mental cycles on such an activity?

    Of course this seems legalistic, but I'm quite sure that even the
    remote possibility of a lawsuit from some former noter would cause
    the DEC lawyers to rule out any such sale.

    On the other hand, there's nothing to stop someone from establishing
    a service independent of DEC to provides NOTES to users for a price.
    Such a service could start new versions of any or all of the popular
    conferences.



    dlm

  >  these years.  Hence, I believe DEC could *not* legally sell the
  >  contents of any existing employee-interest notes file unless it
  >  obtained permission of 100% of the people whose notes would be
  >  included.

Oh, I don't know.  DEC can do anything it likes with the 
specs and code written by me on DEC's equipment, without getting
my approval. I don't really see why notes (which are, like the 
code and specs, simply bits of rotating rust) should be treated
differently.

dave

P.S.  If there's any money to be made re-selling this comment,
      I'd like to request my share of the proceeds.

    Maybe I am missing something here (I didn't see any definite in the
    base note), is there a REAL threat of employee interest notesfiles
    being taken away?  Can anybody point me to the 'basenote' or note
    giving some detail on this?
    
    Tx.  Jeff
    

    None that I am aware of.  This time it is based on pure speculation, as
    far as I can tell. 
    
    There was an active discussion based on a Management proposal to
    eliminate Employee Interest Notes Files about a year back, but that was
    resolved (at that time) in favor of continuance.
    

    Yeah, but... We've had some "actions" recently that *must* reflect very
    badly on EINF...
    
    Laurie.