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Another interesting feature of Unix appears to be its ease of accessibility.
I recently asked (on another forum) how people could get to the Internet
if they didn't have access to a mainframe account via an institutional or
organizational affiliation.  Most of the responses that were sent back
informed me about Public Access Unix sites.  A couple of people sent
pages of Unix sites listing varying degrees (and service) of access to
Intenet/Usenet groups.  Most of them were very inexpensive in terms of
cost (particularly if you looked at them in comparison to some of the
larger commercial vendors (MCImail and CompuServ) that provide network
access).  Of course, I haven't tried any of these systems or looked at
them in relationship to listserv (until this discussion).

It did strike me, however, that these Unix offerings might be a
way for individuals and small institutions to "get connected."  They
don't cost a small fortune to participate in (if you have a PC and modem).
Access could be as easy as a local phone call on your modem...

Of course, there's still the question of the PC and modem.  Let's face
it, even if networking becomes as common as a loaf of bread, will
e-journals ever have the supermarket stand-in-line appeal of something
like People magazine?!

Just my random thoughts.  This is an interesting discussion!  -- Birdie