Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 15:35:27 -0500 From: madodel at ptdprolog.net Subject: [VOICENWS] OT: News.Individual.NET not free of charge anymore From: "Frank Beythien" [Moderator note: This isn't related to OS/2 but a number of OS/2 users (Including myself) use news.indidual.net for Usenet access.] [german version deleted] Dear users of News.Individual.NET, effective from April 1th, 2005, use of News.Individual.NET will not be free of charge anymore. The news service will continue as a fee-based service. The details: ============ Effective immediately, registration for our news service is only possible through our web site: http://news.individual.net/ Registration by e-mail (as hitherto) is no longer possible. Holders of existing accounts who want to continue using their account need to convert it into a pay account. This is also only possible through our web site: http://news.individual.net/ You will also find all details on payment options, terms of use, and terms of contract on the web site. The time until March 31th, 2005, is a transitional period so that holders of existing accounts will have plenty of time for convenient conversion. Sign-up for new accounts or conversion of existing accounts made within the transitional period (before April 1th, 2005) will not cause any disadvantages: Contracts concluded within the transitional period will last until March 31th, 2006 (Annual Subscription) or June 30th, 2005 (3 Months Subscription) without additional costs. Then the contracts will auto- matically renew themselves for another year or another three months respectively. Important notes: Effective from April 1th, 2005, all non-converted accounts will stop working. Users who use the server News.CIS.DFN.DE as part of the DFNNetNews project are not effected by the changes described above. Nothing will change for these users, they do not need to do anything. The fee: ======== The fee for an account for News.Individual.NET is 10 EUR per year (annual payment), that converts to only 0.84 EUR per month. The price includes VAT at 16%. The background: =============== The tradition of running news servers at Freie Universitaet Berlin goes back as far as 1989 (historic keyword: "Methan"). The news service was open for external users ever since: Until 1992, there was no access restriction at all (as usual at that time). Later, a basic access management where IP numbers and domain names were added on request was established. Starting with the CIS project (a third-party funded project of DFN) of ZEDAT of Freie Universitaet Berlin, the news service was expanded by the feature of registration for individual users in the beginning of the year 1998: News.CIS.DFN.DE was born. (*) (*) see Message-ID: <6apqmg$rbe$1 at fu-berlin.de> After the CIS project was finished in mid 2002, the administrators kept this service alive by maintaining it mainly in their spare time. Since this was not sustainable in perpetuity, options on how to raise money from external people and institutions for the provision and maintenance of the service had to be researched and created. Several approaches to find sponsors for the service eventually failed, especially due to the lack of understanding by the potential sponsors for the nature of Usenet. Since July 1th, 2003, ZEDAT offers - again in cooperation with DFN - news services to other research and education institutions for money (service name: "DFNNetNews"). In the course of this cooperation, the server name "News.CIS.DFN.DE" vested exclusively to DFNNetNews: "News.Individual.DE" and "News.Individual.NET" are the new server names under which the service is available for the more than 250,000 external individual users that were registered since the beginning of 1998. After a long evaluation and preparation period, the service will convert to a fee-based service for these external individual users effective from April 1th, 2005. We regret that it is no longer possible to offer this service free of charge. We would be very happy if our service convinced its users of its quality and of the engagement of its operators during the many years of its existence so that they decide to stay our users even if the service is not free of charge anymore. Besides, we would - of course - like to thank all people that recommended our service over the years and used it responsibly and carefully in the spirit of Usenet! Best regards, the NetNews Team of Freie Universitaet Berlin Glossary: ========= CIS = DFN project "Center for Information Services" DFN = Germany's National Research and Education Network ZEDAT = Computer Center of Freie Universitaet Berlin -- Frank Beythien fBeythienDESPAM at DESPAMgmx.de -- Warpstock 2005 - Where/When? Stay tuned to http://www.warpstock.org Warpstock Europe 2005 - Where/When? Stay tuned to http://www.warpstock.net [Moderator's note: All posts are sent without guarantee to the accuracy of the content. We try to verify details and URLs but this is an entirely volunteer run list, so 100% fact checking and the quality/useability of products announced here is impossible. If you respond to this post please remove the DESPAM from the poster's email addresses. 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