LDB
= L =
leak
leaf site n.
[obs.] Before pervasive TCP/IP, this term
was used of a machine that merely originated and read Usenet news
or mail, and did not relay any third-party traffic. It was often
uttered in a critical tone; when the ratio of leaf sites to
backbone, rib, and other relay sites got too high, the network
tended to develop bottlenecks. Compare backbone site, rib site. Now that traffic patterns depend more on the distribution
of routers than of host machines this term has largely fallen out
of use.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.