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XyWrite on Internet



r Kenneth Frank (personal):

Alan Needell sent me a copy of your message announcing a TGI presence on
Compuserve. I want to suggest that many users who are on the Internet have no
interest in the commercial services, and that this preference for the openness
of the Internet will increase rapidly in the future (another 10 million people
began using the Internet so far this year).

I began a dedicated XyWrite list on the Internet earlier this year, and its
membership is gradually increasing. Although I invited Jeff Ramsay to
establish a presence on it, he is not even listed among the subscribers;
whether someone else on your staff has ever read it I do not know.

It is odd that you prefer to invest in Compuserve, an expensive means of
communication that is open to a narrower segment of people, while ignoring the
Internet, the more open one. Anyone who can send e-mail to the Internet,
whether they have any other access to it or not, can subscribe and take part in
the interchange of ideas and information about XYWRITE. That includes
subscribers to Compuserve, Delphi, and every other online service that provides
an Internet gateway, every student and faculty member in every U.S. college,
most people in government, and those in the large number of corporations that
now use the Internet. The list is open to everyone, and connect time is free
unless you belong to a commercial service that charges for it.

If you look into it, you will find that a large number of hardware and software
developers are using Internet lists and newsgroups to provide support at no
cost to them except having support personnel read the facility regularly. It
is well known that for many companies that limit their investment in tech
support, such as Gateway, an Internet newsgroup is the surest way to get an
official reply to a technical question within 24 hours, and you don't have to
wait on the phone to get it.

I hope you find this worth thinking about. I offered to provide Jeff Ramsay
with information to post on your BBS, but he has not asked for it. You are
welcome to subscribe, and to use this as a tool for supporting XYWRITE.

CC: XYWRITE List
-- Nathan Sivin
History and Sociology of Science
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia PA 19104-3325