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Integrat<strong>in</strong>g Servers for Communication Over the Internet<br />

Marco Aiello<br />

Corso di Laurea <strong>in</strong> Ingegneria In<strong>format</strong>ica<br />

Universita' di Roma La Sapienza, Italy<br />

aiellom@dis.uniroma1.it<br />

Mart<strong>in</strong> Haeberli<br />

Advanced Technology Group<br />

Apple Computer Inc., USA<br />

(Now at Netscape Communication Corporation, USA)<br />

mart<strong>in</strong>h@netscape.com<br />

Abstract: Communication among groups that share a common <strong>in</strong>terest or goal is a crucial task for all<br />

organizations and scientific communities. In many cases, it is also very important that <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion<br />

reaches a certa<strong>in</strong> target audience. We have built a demonstration prototype that <strong>in</strong>tegrates different<br />

Internet technologies to support communication among groups. We have used the Apple Mac<strong>in</strong>tosh<br />

environment and glued all the applications together us<strong>in</strong>g UserLand’s Frontier system-level script<strong>in</strong>g<br />

language [Hale, 1995]. In this article we discuss why it is critical that the same <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion can be<br />

reached <strong>in</strong> different ways, then we expla<strong>in</strong> our approach to the problem, its strength and its limits.<br />

TV News vs. Newspapers (i.e. Mail<strong>in</strong>g Lists vs. Bullet<strong>in</strong> Board Systems)<br />

Until now ways of communication on the Internet have <strong>in</strong>cluded mail<strong>in</strong>g lists, BBS (bullet<strong>in</strong> board<br />

systems), and newsgroups. But which is the best? It is our belief that none and all of them are. What we mean<br />

is that there is no w<strong>in</strong>ner: each approach has its strengths and its weaknesses. And each user has his<br />

preferences.<br />

Some people like to watch the news on TV; some use the radio for this purpose; some like newspapers<br />

and others use on-l<strong>in</strong>e services; <strong>in</strong> the same way some people subscribe to mail<strong>in</strong>g lists, some to newsgroups<br />

and others frequently search BBS systems. But there is no absolute: if you are used to read<strong>in</strong>g a newspaper<br />

every day this does not mean that you are never go<strong>in</strong>g to watch the news on TV. If you are <strong>in</strong> a hurry or you are<br />

do<strong>in</strong>g someth<strong>in</strong>g (like driv<strong>in</strong>g) you will probably use the radio; if you want a close look on a topic or you want<br />

to see someth<strong>in</strong>g on a historical event you will read an article on the newspaper (if you still have it).<br />

Up to now adm<strong>in</strong>istrators just decided which was the most appropriate for the expected needs and end<br />

users did not have many choices. It is our belief that the <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion should be available to you however you<br />

wish. Once a discussion is started on the Internet, you must be able to retrieve the contents and to add to them,<br />

no matter how you decide to browse and add. If you want fresh <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion, let email reach you. If you want to<br />

search <strong>in</strong> the l<strong>in</strong>e of a discussion, use a BBS that holds all of the notes. If you like web browsers then use your<br />

favorite one to reach a site with the messages posted.<br />

Our Proposal<br />

With our prototype, we took a significant step <strong>in</strong> this direction. We decided to use Apple’s<br />

Mac<strong>in</strong>tosh as server. For this purpose we used WebSTAR as web server, Apple Internet Mail Server<br />

(AIMS) for serv<strong>in</strong>g email and Macjordomo for the mail<strong>in</strong>g lists. Actually, it is possible to use any other mail<br />

server on any mach<strong>in</strong>e as long as the accounts needed to run our system are created. It is also possible to use<br />

other mail<strong>in</strong>g list servers. (For example, the email can be held by one or more UNIX servers runn<strong>in</strong>g<br />

Majordomo, with an additional email account for our system). In addition, Eudora was used to let the

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