Subject: Gift to Info-Mac Forces Close of SUMEX-AIM Macintosh Archive

From: [email-masked] (Brian Reck)
Date: 1 Apr 1995 22:09:10 -0500

Gift to Info-Mac Forces Close of SUMEX-AIM Macintosh Archive

by Brian Reck,
 Assistant Director of the Info-Mac Network Office of Special Projects

Boston, April 1

The Info-Mac Network, provider of the Info-Mac Archive and publisher of 
the Info-Mac Digest, announced today that its primary archive site, at 
sumex-aim.stanford.edu, will be permanently closed by the end of this 
month. The Info-Mac Moderators indicated that the cause of this closure has 
been precipitated by events that they originally thought would benefit the 
archive significantly. 

In mid-January of this year, America Online, a service provider often 
unfairly denounced by critics as a burden to the Internet, generously 
offered to donate a high-end Sun server to Info-Mac in return for help in 
establishing a local mirror of Info-Mac. The Moderators were thrilled at 
the opportunity to expand Info-Mac's services that the new server would 
provide. 

However, upon breaking the news to the system managers at Stanford 
University, current home site of the Info-Mac Network, the Moderators were 
informed that Stanford did not wish to assist in the installation and 
maintenance of the new server. Furthermore, the Stanford managers stated 
that they no longer wished to support Info-Mac, and asked the Moderators to 
make preparations to move the service elsewhere. 

Shocked and demoralized, the Moderators began a search for a new home site, 
fearing that no organization would step forward, given the significant 
network load that the primary server places on its host site. Miraculously, 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of Cambridge Mass., a rival 
science and engineering school of Stanford, offered to sponsor the Info-Mac 
Network, perceiving the opportunity to enhance both the quality of the 
service and its image as a provider of free services to the Internet 
community. 

The Info-Mac Moderators are now making plans to set up shop at MIT and have 
registered a new domain name for the service, Info-Mac.ORG. A variety of 
new services are planned, including a Web site, new support for mirror 
sites, and new versions of the Info-Mac Digest. 

The Moderators expect the current primary server at Stanford, 
sumex-aim.stanford.edu, to cease operation on behalf of the Info-Mac 
Network within one month, but, as a result of the dramatic upward turn of 
events, do not expect any interruption in service.