If that's a factual statement, then I withdraw every positive comment I've ever made about Dejanews (excuse me, Deja). And I certainly hope no one is really paying them any money for services, or investing in them as an organization, as it's plain that they've neglected to spend any money hiring or retaining skilled technical staff.
And you're qualified to make that assumption...how? Do you personally know any of their technical staff? In actuality, the staff, at large, are not that instrumental in the business direction. I've been in Business Management and Finance for 17+ years and most corporations (deja being one of them) the board of directors dictate the course of action or inaction, not the technical staff. Board=Investors, and investors are looking for return on their investment.
However, the major point you skirt around slightly is this: the focus of the organization has gone through a radical shift since its inception, when it was dejanews, a searchable archive of USENET. And today, it is "Deja.com -- before you buy."
Somewhere in the world, on a daily basis, companies are changing their business plan. Inevitably there are going to pros and cons for their users. Fact is Deja is entitled to change their product every day if they want. It's really no different than say... changing jobs. Something I'm sure you have done or will do in your lifetime.
In other words, being a searchable archive of USENET is now an afterthought for Deja. And since it's not where they're expecting to make any money, maintenance and scaling of that aspect of their service is no longer a priority -- whether the old USENET community, such as it is anymore, likes that or not.
Yep, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. Would you work for free? I'd try it for a while, but eventually living in a cardboard box and eating from dumpsters would grow old. The USENET community, such as it is anymore, isn't paying Deja's bills. Why do YOU have such an issue with their need to make money?
Well, I personally can find plenty of fault with the decision and their strategic direction, even though I understand their business decision, and even though I suspect the real story behind that stuff being offline is a little more like, "Crap, we can't seem to get those machines back up -- okay, quick, damage control: we decided to do this!"
I worked for a company that took down archive machines during a move and it just wasn't cost effective to bring them back up at that time. I would imagine that Deja is pumping this money into their new buying service. Something else for which I won't fault them.
Here, I think, is the real ironic tragedy: were Deja willing to say to the USENET technical community at large, "Okay folks, we're going to lose this archive and have to take it down if we can't come up with something to do with it -- we aren't capable of maintaining it any longer," it is not at all implausible that a large number of USENET veterans, true believers, and computer professionals would indeed have come up with a technical solution that would have allowed the archive to remain functional.
I don't see the irony, but that's beside the point.
After all, USENET itself (which is really nothing but a money sink in practical terms) remains operational -- why? Because of the freely-donated time and other resources of those who believe it's important.
Yes, and Deja continues to provide this free service. Albeit in reduced proportions, at least for now. It's obvious that you believe USENET is important, so I ask you this... what have YOU done to insure the continued operation of USENET?
Ok, so you "believe" what you write to be true, but just because you "believe" it's true doesn't make it so. I took the time to do some research before I posted my comments here. If what you are saying is factual, I would like to know your source.
People are assuming that the copyright laws for printed material and such are the same for internet use. That's not necessarily the case. Unfortunately the law is still fairly sketchy in regard to copyright issues and the internet.
Would you mind sharing your source? I'd like to confirm what you wrote since it is in direct opposition to what I read about Internet Copyright laws on several sites dealing with these types of issues.
A violation of copyright can only be charged if the material has a commercial value. The commercial value of your posts (assuming it has any) is greatly damaged once you put it out there for free and it becomes accessible to countless numbers of users. Generally, e-mail and usenet posts have little to no value to begin with. My suggestion is that anyone who disagrees with what deja is doing should stop using their service. Considering they are in business to make money (aren't we all?) and hosting usenet is a free service they provide, not something from which they profit, IMHO we are lucky they haven't taken down the entire usenet portion of their site.
...unless you are being subjected to some type of deja brain control. Ok, this copyright issue is getting way out of hand. A violation of copyright can only be charged if the material has a commercial value. The commercial value of your posts (assuming it has any) is greatly damaged once you put it out there for free and it becomes accessible to countless numbers of users. Generally, e-mail and usenet posts have little to no value to begin with. Furthermore, had you actually read my message you would see that I wasn't saying you had a choice as to whether or not deja links your messages to products, but rather that if you don't like what they are doing you have the CHOICE not to use their free service.
I hate to point this out, but it's really hard to take you seriously when there are at least 10 grammatical errors in your 3 sentences of text. There is this thing called a dictionary...
Slashdot Mirror
And you're qualified to make that assumption...how? Do you personally know any of their technical staff? In actuality, the staff, at large, are not that instrumental in the business direction. I've been in Business Management and Finance for 17+ years and most corporations (deja being one of them) the board of directors dictate the course of action or inaction, not the technical staff. Board=Investors, and investors are looking for return on their investment.
However, the major point you skirt around slightly is this: the focus of the organization has gone through a radical shift since its inception, when it was dejanews, a searchable archive of USENET. And today, it is "Deja.com -- before you buy."
Somewhere in the world, on a daily basis, companies are changing their business plan. Inevitably there are going to pros and cons for their users. Fact is Deja is entitled to change their product every day if they want. It's really no different than say... changing jobs. Something I'm sure you have done or will do in your lifetime.
In other words, being a searchable archive of USENET is now an afterthought for Deja. And since it's not where they're expecting to make any money, maintenance and scaling of that aspect of their service is no longer a priority -- whether the old USENET community, such as it is anymore, likes that or not.
Yep, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. Would you work for free? I'd try it for a while, but eventually living in a cardboard box and eating from dumpsters would grow old. The USENET community, such as it is anymore, isn't paying Deja's bills. Why do YOU have such an issue with their need to make money?
Well, I personally can find plenty of fault with the decision and their strategic direction, even though I understand their business decision, and even though I suspect the real story behind that stuff being offline is a little more like, "Crap, we can't seem to get those machines back up -- okay, quick, damage control: we decided to do this!"
I worked for a company that took down archive machines during a move and it just wasn't cost effective to bring them back up at that time. I would imagine that Deja is pumping this money into their new buying service. Something else for which I won't fault them.
Here, I think, is the real ironic tragedy: were Deja willing to say to the USENET technical community at large, "Okay folks, we're going to lose this archive and have to take it down if we can't come up with something to do with it -- we aren't capable of maintaining it any longer," it is not at all implausible that a large number of USENET veterans, true believers, and computer professionals would indeed have come up with a technical solution that would have allowed the archive to remain functional.
I don't see the irony, but that's beside the point.
After all, USENET itself (which is really nothing but a money sink in practical terms) remains operational -- why? Because of the freely-donated time and other resources of those who believe it's important.
Yes, and Deja continues to provide this free service. Albeit in reduced proportions, at least for now. It's obvious that you believe USENET is important, so I ask you this... what have YOU done to insure the continued operation of USENET?
Ok, so you "believe" what you write to be true, but just because you "believe" it's true doesn't make it so. I took the time to do some research before I posted my comments here. If what you are saying is factual, I would like to know your source.
People are assuming that the copyright laws for printed material and such are the same for internet use. That's not necessarily the case. Unfortunately the law is still fairly sketchy in regard to copyright issues and the internet.
This is certainly a hot topic for debate.
Would you mind sharing your source? I'd like to confirm what you wrote since it is in direct opposition to what I read about Internet Copyright laws on several sites dealing with these types of issues.
Me am think this may be law on Bizarro World...?
A violation of copyright can only be charged if the material has a commercial value. The commercial value of your posts (assuming it has any) is greatly damaged once you put it out there for free and it becomes accessible to countless numbers of users. Generally, e-mail and usenet posts have little to no value to begin with.
My suggestion is that anyone who disagrees with what deja is doing should stop using their service. Considering they are in business to make money (aren't we all?) and hosting usenet is a free service they provide, not something from which they profit, IMHO we are lucky they haven't taken down the entire usenet portion of their site.
...unless you are being subjected to some type of deja brain control. Ok, this copyright issue is getting way out of hand. A violation of copyright can only be charged if the material has a commercial value. The commercial value of your posts (assuming it has any) is greatly damaged once you put it out there for free and it becomes accessible to countless numbers of users. Generally, e-mail and usenet posts have little to no value to begin with. Furthermore, had you actually read my message you would see that I wasn't saying you had a choice as to whether or not deja links your messages to products, but rather that if you don't like what they are doing you have the CHOICE not to use their free service.
I hate to point this out, but it's really hard to take you seriously when there are at least 10 grammatical errors in your 3 sentences of text. There is this thing called a dictionary...
I'd say it's you. If you don't like what deja is doing then don't use their service. That's YOUR choice.