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Volume 3, Number 34 8 September 1986 +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | _ | | / \ | | /|oo \ | | - FidoNews - (_| /_) | | _`@/_ \ _ | | International | | \ \\ | | FidoNet Association | (*) | \ )) | | Newsletter ______ |__U__| / \// | | / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / | | (________) (_/(_|(____/ | | (jm) | +---------------------------------------------------------------+ Editor in Chief: Thom Henderson Chief Procrastinator Emeritus: Tom Jennings FidoNews is the official newsletter of the International FidoNet Association, and is published weekly by SEAdog Leader, node 1/1. You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission standards are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from node 1/1. Copyright (C) 1986, by the International FidoNet Association. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact IFNA. The contents of the articles contained here are not our responsibility, nor do we necessarily agree with them. Everything here is subject to debate. Table of Contents 1. ARTICLES MAILCOST--some comments from a user Quit Belly-aching Fido Utilities from 130/3 Artificial Intelligence Conference International Fido Conference - notes by Allen Miller Problem with the date format in FIDOmail Help Out Loek! More coals on the fire, or IFNA in 500 words or less IFNA/Conference Remote Reaction 2. FOR SALE Public Domain Software Library Sale!! 3. NOTICES The Interrupt Stack CARTOON: Generic George, by Bruce White New Net in Southern California - #166 Fidonews Page 2 8 Sep 1986 ================================================================= ARTICLES ================================================================= Jerry Hindle, 123/6 Mailcost some comments I will attempt something I have never done before..... I will "try" to write a review of a program I found on a board in Arizona called appropriately "MAILCOST" I have used this program for accounting mail in our net now for about a month and find that although it is well written and certainly does check and account for ALL out-of-town mail, it does it in a manner that is inconsistent with the way Fido accounts the actual costs to the user. Fido subtracts the listed cost of a message from the users account regardless of whether there are other messages going to the same node or host. This is I believe the way that MOST hosts try to keep up with the mail costs for a net. While "MAILCOST" does certainly keep a record of the mail from each node, it does it by taking ALL messages to a certain host and lumping the cost together. It then divides the cost of the call (supplied by the host) between the nodes who had mail for that node/host. While this is certainly cheaper it places an additional load on the host & the sysop of the system to update the users account to reflect the savings (not an easy task I assure you) each time the mail is accounted. This results in confusion of the users as to actually "how much" the messages cost. Fido tells them that a message to node xxx/xx costs $.25 each and then when they send the message and the host gets say 2 or three in for that host then the actual cost is lowered. There is no way the host can ACCURATELY specify to the user what the ACTUAL cost will be until after the mail is sent. It is much like an estimate from a repair shop, sometimes accurate but often wrong. I have a few suggestions for the author of the program. I don't want to sound like I am jumping his case (which I definitely AM NOT) but I think that by looking at it from the AVERAGE hosts point of view he will come up with a vastly improved version that could account the mail in two ways, either being specified by the host using the program. Suggestion #1: Set the program up to ADD up the total cost of the mail from each NODE separately BY USER NAME. This way each message sent will be counted as a separate call (although not always the case) and logged appropriately. Thus the host can inform the node each accounting period of the Fido-based cost of his nodes mail. I suggest a log format as follows: NODE # USER NAME # msgs Total COST ----------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 3 8 Sep 1986 123/1 Jim Brown 2 $0.50 123/1 Sysop 4 $1.00 123/5 Sysop 7 $1.75 123/6 Sysop 20 $5.00 ( I send a LOT of mail out for myself) This way the host knows how much Fido ACTUALLY charged the user and since most hosts collect BEFORE they allow the user to send mail then they can deduct this from the account of the user regardless of what node the user is on. Any savings realized by the host due to multiple messages to the same node/host could either be passed back to the user or used to help cover the costs of bringing in such filesas FidoNews and the NodeDiff.a* each week. I am sure that most hosts try to do as much as they can afford, let's face it no matter what, calls for the news and nodediff costs the host money and since there is no one for him to try to pass the costs on to he ends up eating about $15 a month over the cost of operation of the system. By making the program capable of working either like the format it now has or by the format I have proposed (selectable by the sysop/host), I am sure the author would realize that the accounting method he uses now, while good, is based on paying for mail after the fact which would mean letting anyone in the net send mail at any time without having to put up a cent. This could run the host a bundle and I don't think this was the authors intention. Also if the host did do it this way he could stand to lose a lot of money from people not paying him what they owe for mail. Again I am not on anyones case this is simply constructive criticism and I hope it is taken that way. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 4 8 Sep 1986 Jerry Hindle, 123/6 Quit Belly-aching After reading FidoNews issue 332 I get the distinct impression that some of you fortunate enough to be able to attend the conference in Colorado went there for one reason, to belly- ache! Come off it people, I mean Thom Henderson, Ben Baker, Ken Kaplan, and TOM JENNINGS have busted their butts to keep this network going. They have forged ahead despite the adversities with something they believed in. They sure didn't do it for the profit potential, I mean lets face it the profit potential is simply non-existent. I read where tempers flared over the nomination of the board members of INFA, I read where people were miffed that they couldn't cast proxy votes, etc. I will say this one thing to all of you out there and then I will shut up. Tom Jennings didn't HAVE to release Fido the way he did. He could have made it a commercial package and gotten a LOT of money for it. Ben Baker didn't HAVE to work so long and hard on the nodelist setup. He could have left it where you had to edit the damn 137k long file by hand each week. He could have simply not done anything in which case there would be no network. Ken Kaplan didn't HAVE to work so hard to organize the network into regions, net, and nodes. He could have left it as was and let you figure out how to send the mail to the west coast to one particular board and one board only. Thom Henderson didn't HAVE to volunteer for newsletter publisher. He could have gone his merry way and we would have no means of finding out what the Fidos outside our local area were doing without having to call all over the world. I say this to the person that said the hell with these people, he already had a network if Ken and Ben and Tom Jennings and Thom Henderson didn't like it. If you think you have a network just STOP and THINK what you would have if these people had done NOTHING. You would have just that......NOT A DAMN THING!!!!!!!!!! Quit your damn belly-aching and let these people do their job. You concern yourself with running your little piece of the machine (this could apply to everyone) and TOGETHER we can make this network WORK for the good of us ALL. Fidonews Page 5 8 Sep 1986 'NUFF SAID ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 6 8 Sep 1986 Eric Ewanco, The AmERICan BBS, SEAdog 130/3 The response to my MSGCRYPT program has been so positive that I've decided to announce some of my other programs I've written. Any program I've written can be either file requested by SEAdog or for Fidos, send me a message and I'll hold a file attach for you (no trouble at all). Either Poll me or Pickup me with a message to me the next day. Here are some of them: CALLERS.ARC: Modify the caller count. Show, add to, subtract from, and set the caller count. (Not for caller count stuffing! Use when converting BBS software or after a crash.) SYSEDIT.ARC: (no docs) Full screen fancy system file editor. Arrow-key editing, change caller count, sort files by priv, exchange files, insert in the middle or delete from the middle, rotate all files. DARC.ARC: Archive utility. Scans an archive for filenames and deletes those filenames from the current dir. For use when you've dearchived a large archive and decide you don't like it; instead of individually finding which files were in there are deleting them, run DARC and it will automatically delete them! ARCDIV.ARC: Archive utility. Remove certain files from an archive to a separate archive without unpacking and repacking them. LASTUSER.ARC: Read LASTUSER.BBS and display stats. CHECKCD.COM: (12 bytes) Return errorlevel 1 on no CD. MOVEULS.ARC: Aid in moving uploads from u/l dir to file areas. ALTPAGE.ARC: Separates odd and even pages of docs so you can print on both sides of the paper SKIPPAGE.ARC: Extract pages from the middle of large docs From Eric Ewanco on SEAdog 130/3, Enjoy! ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 7 8 Sep 1986 Tom Emerson, 16/635 Can a computer become intelligent? This is a question that a select group of scientists have been asking for over 30 years. All will agree that the answer is yes, but not in their life time, or their childrens lifetime. But when the computer does become intelligent, what will be its implications on the world? How will the intelligent computer effect the world in which we live in, and that of our great great grandchildren? Artificial Intelligence (AI) hs been called a half breed of academic research in psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. Because of this, most AI researchers are frowned upon by their colleagues in other fields of science. They feel that AI is something that should be left alone, that computers are not here to be intelligent, but to help intelligent people. Joseph Weizenbaum, a noted computer scientist at M.I.T., has gone as far as to describe "...AI as the province of madmen and psycopaths." The AI Conference will try to answer these questions about the future of intelligent computers, as well as inform you of the latest findings in the AI field. Short tutorials on various areas of AI will also be included periodically. It is a place where your questions about AI can be answered. Languages such as LISP and Prolog will be supported. AI programming techniques will be discussed if there is interest. What is AI all about? What exactly does AI mean? For answers to these, take a look at the AI Conference. Current locations are: New York City Area: ------------------- Gateway NRA BillBoard Brooklyn, NY New York, NY 1-718-338-3501 1-212-333-3285 Baud:300/1200 baud:300/1200/2400 Net/Node:107/222 Net/Node:107/102 Time:6pm to 8am weekday New Jersey Area: New England Area: ---------------- ----------------- Helix 1 The Mindset Fido Atlantic City, NJ Burlington, VT 1-609-266-0517 1-802-658-2494 Baud:300/1200/2400 Baud:300/1200 Net/Node:107/404 Net/Node:16/635 West Coast Area: ---------------- Mindset BBS Sunnyvale, CA 1-408-737-3362 Baud:300/1200 Fidonews Page 8 8 Sep 1986 Net/Node:143/20 SYSOPS: If you would like to have this conference on your board, please contact Richard Clark at Gateway NRA (107/222) whom is the co-ordinator of the conference. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 9 8 Sep 1986 International Fido Conference August 14-17, 1986 per Allen Miller, 108/0 The conference was hosted by the Colorado Springs User Group and they did a fine job. There were somewhere around 100 Fido Sysops (some with wives). The Sysops came from all over the United States; there were also Sysops from Canada, Great Britain and Holland. It was a great experience to meet face-to-face with the people I had been writing e-mail to for the last two years. I overheard a conversation between Thom Henderson and Donovan Kuhn where Thom told Donovan that he looked just like he had pictured him. That guy must be clairvoyant. I arrived too late for the Thursday evening session which featured Ezra Shapiro of Byte Magazine. Ezra didn't make it either as he was bailing water out of his house. Seems they have the same kind of plumbing problems in S.F. that the rest of us experience from time to time. Over the weekend we got to hear a good bit from Ezra who proved to be the stabilizing force that was needed for some of our 'discussions'. I will skip to the topic that I think most of my local Sysops are interested in and will get back to the rest of the conference in some fashion. VERSION 12 ========== Tom Jennings is working on it. However, it seems like it will be much more involved than I had imagined. The network has been growing at geometric paces. * Dates for availability ranged from September to January *. Fido's current internal nodelist table has room for 1,200 nodes. If the nodelist has more than 1,200 nodes, Fido will just skip the ones beyond. Until v12 is out, Fido Administrators can help by eliminating inactive Fido's when they send in their nodelist updates. Also, if you have entries indicated as DOWN, just put a semicolon before them to change to a comment. This will also help. If you remember the time before Nets, when there were only Nodes, then you will be able to appreciate this. In May, 1984, there were about 10 Fido's; in June, 1985 there were about 160 Fido's and the Net concept was introduced; at September, 1986 there are now almost 1,200 Fido's and the Zone is the new step. A Zone will be a group of Nets. Initially, Zones might line up with countries. Down the road a Zone might even be a subset of a country. Just imagine it. If nothing else in Fido changed other than the Zone concept, jillions of Fido utilities would have to change to accommodate the new structure of Zone/Net/Node replacing the Fidonews Page 10 8 Sep 1986 current Net/Node. Fido v12 can't just be haphazardly introduced into the bbs world without a lot of work/time to at least have compatible versions of the most important utilities like listgen, editnl, xlatlist, and robot. There will be several months between the distribution of v12 and the introduction of new Zone numbers. This will give everyone a chance to get familiar with the new software and hopefully keep the confusion during the changeover to a minimum. Some other areas of change. 1. Fido's internal version of the nodelist will be a disk file instead of loaded to memory. The list is just getting too big. Tom Jennings said he rewrote the search code so when Fido needs to check an address against the nodelist, it will be real fast. 2. To make international mail more efficient, a 'gate' concept for outgoing mail of one country to be funneled to the gate who would process and send mail destined for a second country. 3. Because of the size of the nodelist and the other related Fido structures, Fido will not be a system that will run well on a floppy based system. Fido will want a hard disk for storage capacity. 4. Fido will have no more command line switches other than perhaps the /T test mode. Tom's comment was that there just weren't enough letters available for additional controls. All these type controls will be handled from a text file, as will be the event schedule. 5. The version 11 manual was over 300k bytes. The version 12 manual will not be downloadable. It will be professionally printed and available for purchase for some reasonable number of clams. 6. There will be new handling of system security in v12. Our names (Twit, Normal, etc.) will go by the wayside and be replaced with numbers. Security will work on a 'mask' concept which will let you have much more control of access by user, area, and function. 7. To conform to the current times regarding security of e-mail and disclosure.... Normal level users will be given a message that the 'Sysop can read Private mail'. I am sure that there are more new features and goodies of v12 than I have covered here. However, that is all that I had in my notes or that I could remember from Tom Jennings' conference session. Anyway, knowing Tom a little, I expect there will be some minor things that he wouldn't have thought to discuss in the meeting. We'll just have to wait and see. International Fido Net Association Fidonews Page 11 8 Sep 1986 ================================== IFNA (pronounced "if-nuh") is the International Fido Net Association. It is a nonprofit organization created to be a vehicle to raise tax deductible money to support the ongoing needs of this large organization. The Board of Directors was approved to be Ken Kaplan, Ben Baker and Thom Henderson. The Articles of Incorporation (or some kind of legal b...s... to use a term of George Wing) were voted on and approved at the meeting. Preparing Bylaws is a step that remains to be done. There was a lot of energy invested to get this group organized (lets hear some applause). At the conference there was a lot of energy expended on some less productive discussion of the so-called issues. Suffice it to say (good old hindsight) that more communication on the agenda of incorporation might have made people more happy. However, I say that there are probably some people in the world that you can never please. Since all of us donate our time for this effort, I wouldn't loose too much sleep over the small minority. If you weren't there, you missed some interesting interpersonal interaction. FidoNet Standards Committee =========================== Randy Bush, along with his committee, has done a fabulous job on what will be the most meaningful contribution to the world of telecommunications that I could have imagined. Randy has been developing the FidoNet standards document. The FidoNet Standards Document will be a thorough and complete documentation of how to send mail between computers via communications links. Can you believe it, this will contain the first complete documentation of XMODEM protocol. This document will be used by authors of other systems to incorporate FidoNet compatibility. A 64k microcomputer (commodore, volkswagen, etc.) could not load the entire Fido program and could not possibly participate in the network. With this document, programmers will have the tools to adapt their communications software to the FidoNet requirements. Voila, worldwide mail network brought to you by FidoNet. Some enterprising Fido Sysops have already worked out links to other networks, Usenet and Bitnet, to name two. Imagine it, other non-micro based nets could spring up that use the FidoNet Standards and thereby be directly compatible with any Fido system. It's just incredible. Rest of the Meeting =================== There were interesting sessions on SEAdog, Thom Henderson; Fido with Multilink, Allen Miller (cough, cough); USRobotics, Welch and Smith (I think); Echomail, Jeff Rush; Routing, Ben Fidonews Page 12 8 Sep 1986 Baker; ARC, Andy Foray; FidoNet International, Henk Wevers & Frank Thornley; Unix Gateway, Bob Hartman; and NAPLS, Dave Hughes. In addition to the formal presentations, there were many, many impromptu sessions in the hallways, bar and nice hospitality suite that SEA provided. We went to the Flying W Ranch Saturday night for some cowboy food and music. The Flying W Ranch is number two in the United States for consumption of red beans, next to Wendy's. We had a great meal and got to hear some good picking and strumming. The clouds in the sky were forgiving and we had a lot of fun. The food lines served 1,400 people in 25 minutes. That's what I call a chuck wagon. Sunday morning we got to ride the Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway Cog Wheel Train up to the top of Pikes Peak. We rode from 6,000' to 14,110' in about one hour. The views were glorious. It really makes you glad to be alive. The End ======= Much thanks to our hosts, the Colorado Springs User Group and Dick Bertrand, George Wing, Chuck Sanders, Woody Wood, Jim Cannell who all worked hard to make our meeting a great success. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 13 8 Sep 1986 Problem with the date format in FIDOmail The utility FU have just been released, and I noticed that this program writes the the creation date different from FIDO. The problem is that Fido cannot recognice which date this mail was created so "Delete messages by age" do not work in FIDO. I have a suggestion that the syntax for the date will be set so everybody which write utilities can use the same expression. From Kermit protocoll I got following: Creation Date, expressed as "[yy]yymmdd[ hh:mm[:ss]]" (ISO standard julian format), e.g. 831009 23:59. The time is optional; if given, it should be in 24-hour format, and the seconds may be omitted, and a single space should separate the time from the date. Therefore I suggest that the format for FIDOmail creation date is YYMMDD HH:MM which only occupies 13 bytes and because of that it will be 7 bytes for future things. This is only the structure in the messages. I think that FIDO would write out the date in the same manner as today. Maybe it could be changed so it is ok all over the world by using the Country Dependent Information (MSDOS SYSTEM CALL 38H). Regards from Europe and Sweden Lennart Svensson FIDO 501/4602 To author of FU: I hope you recognize the problem with your date format. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 14 8 Sep 1986 Kurt Kurosawa 19/201 HELP OUT LOEK! The message which appeared in Dutch on p 14 of Fido328.Nws is here translated by Jeanine Fegan. Mrs. Fegan has consented to translate into Dutch any reply you wish to send Loek Jansen. Send your reply through Kurt Kurosawa at 19/201 (Texarkana Region/ Fido's Domain, 318-869-1258, Sysop: Nevin Nobles). --[ English Translation ]---------------------------------- Hello, everybody! There are some problems with Commodores using Fido: 1st - Upload. This doesn't work with the Teletron 1200 or Multimodem 64. 2nd - Download. This doesn't work with these modems, either. A few users asked me several times what we can do about this. Does someone have a solution or know of a modem that doesn't have these problems? [ Note: It would help if you knew of one which is sold in Holland, or could send PD or Freeware programs that would enable the use of these modems --KK ] There are two new programs from Commodore users that I'd like to post for downloading IF they're in the public domain. They were written for the Micro-Master tournament. If you know something about these programs, please let me know. "Friendly greetings", Loek Jansen, Sysop Rozenburg 1 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 15 8 Sep 1986 Bob Robesky, 10/26 More coals on the fire or IFNA in 500 words or less For those who think IFNA came out of a hat. Its formation was discussed in Fido Newsletter # 325. There can be no doubt but that the initial formation of IFNA and it's implementation were handled poorly. However, I have a very real problem in suddenly deciding that the folks who have kept it organized and running for the past two years, have written many of the utilities and compiled and shipped the newsletter, have given freely of their time and money, are suddenly to be viewed as untrustworthy money grubbing assholes. I don't really believe we are witnessing the beginning of an evil empire. The issue that only those in attendance who were paid up members of IFNA would have the right to vote was stupid and was dropped at the actual business meeting. The question of proxy votes was never discussed by anyone at the business meeting though it was mentioned in the newsletter. Tom Jennings and Fido Software are a separate issue from IFNA. Tom is on IFNA the board of directors, but Fido Software is NOT part of IFNA. (I personally think that Tom should be compensated for Fido. Many of us use Fido as both a hobby and to promote our businesses. I own a computer store, I hope to gain sales, but I don't force anyone to buy from me in order to use the board. I also don't run a non-profit business. There is no rational reason to believe that Tom Jennings should continue to provide us with free entertainment. He is a programmer and that's how he makes his living; the Fido code belongs to him, not us. An aside in an aside: the FidoNet standard is going to be, has been, made public and will allow any one who wants to to write a truly "free" bbs system that incorporates the FidoNet protocol. Besides which, it is not really clear to me that TJ is going to charge for version 12. What is clear is that the Version 12 reference manual will cost money. It is being written by a professional writer, it is being bound in book form, and both of these items cost money; writers and publishers don't work for nothing. If there is a charge for the new version you have some choices. If you don't want to buy it, don't. As I understand it, there is no real compelling reason to upgrade unless you are involved to international mail. If you don't think Tom Jennings should be paid for the work he has done, and, until now anyway, Fidonews Page 16 8 Sep 1986 the fun and enjoyment he has brought you, well then, don't pay him. Another choice, of course, is to buy one copy of version 12 and spread it all over the Net; not a very nice solution, but it would certainly stifle Tom's attempt to make some money off his software and probably kill Fido in the process.) Back to IFNA: what the hell can IFNA really do without our cooperation? IFNA is only a name with no real power until we give it, and can't, at least at this time, be mandatory; how are they going to make you join if you don't want to? The immediate advantage of being a member of IFNA is that you will, at least, I hope you will, have a say about the by-laws and how IFNA will be run and what it's direction will be. If you are not a member you will have no input, and it will be harder to change, or implement, anything after the initial structure is in place. The long range advantages range from potential tax deductions to a political power base. However, and this is a big however, without us IFNA is nothing more that a name registered on a few pieces of paper in the state of Missouri. IFNA, at least at this point, does not own the rights to much of anything. The FidoNet utilities are already written, the structure is in place. Everything needed to function is already available. So, if IFNA becomes a closed society, requires mandatory attendance at meetings in Missouri on the 14 of each month when the moon, or is it the sun, is in Aquarius, bites your dog, pisses in the pool, etc.; well then fork'em, start an alternate Network. And here folks is what we're talking about in real money: 48 cents a week, less than the cost of a soft-drink, less than a beer, certainly less than a pack of cigarettes. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 17 8 Sep 1986 HLee - Jones' Nose Fido 101/132 A Big Week For FidoNet The past week or so has been a big one for FidoNet. There was the Fido Conference, and a Fido made national news by being the largest pirate board yet uncovered. In some ways, I think these two events are related by more than the time of their occurrence. Perceptions of the Net I read with interest the newsletter articles on the Fido Conference, and the great forment regarding the formalization of IFNA. It reminded me of some of the discussions I had with some of the principals years ago. Their conclusion was that FidoNet is not a democracy, but a bunch of small fiefdoms unified by a common technology. Another way of putting this is that FidoNet is what its sysops perceive it to be, with the caveat that the sysops did not control the technology - Tom Jennings and St. Louis control the technology. Why we run a Fido Before we can understand why FidoNet exists, each of the individual sysops has to understand why their individual Fido's exist. In our case, we run a BBS to allow us to collect and distribute public domain software among local users, mail among local users, and communications among the developers and beta testers of our company. We run Fido in particular because of the wide variety of file transfer protocols it supports. (This is a particular thorn in our side, as we shall discuss later.) The network is strictly a side benefit, one that costs more monetarily than it returns in any sense. Far be it from me to agree with Mikey Mike Hamilton and I certainly have had our disagreements. I have also had my disagreements with both Mr. Jennings and the St. Louis crowd. However, from what I read, Mike (Mikey as he is derisively referred to by everyone - and Lord Mikey by myself in the past) seems to be under attack because he is asking questions - questions that seem to be valid. When I was there, despite my Fidonews Page 18 8 Sep 1986 problems with him, and despite reservations I had with the technical solutions he implemented as the local host, Mike did one hell of a job. I find it difficult to believe that Mike is Fidonews Page 19 8 Sep 1986 whining about the money per se, which is the implication of many of the authors in the past newsletter. I already pay for about everything In running our Fido, we already pay for just about everything ourselves. We have to pick up our own newsletters and nodelists. We get very little net mail, and a good bit of that is file attached, and therefore not routed through any hosts. Our node takes NO money from our operations There is a very simple reason for this, one that I will hammer home again and again: If I take money for running my system, I am obligated to provide something. (That something would have to be well defined, which is one of the reasons we don't.) How this all relates to the Pirate Fido How does all this relate to the Pirate Fido? Well, until just recently, the informal political structure of Fido was presented in a document called Policy1 or Policy2. In these documents, there were essentially three rules stated: Be a NetNode during the national window, don't hassle another sysop, and don't put up pirate software. The rest of the document goes to great lengths to describe how the various levels of sysops or netops or whatever you want to call them are supposed to (for want of a better word) enforce these rules, and what the appeal process for this enforcement is. Now that Fido was NOT shut down through this process - it was shut down from the outside. While I hope Mr. Miller is correct in the statements he made in his letter to InfoWorld about most Fido's being honest, I am dissillusioned that, for some reason, this gaucherie was allowed to continue despite the formal policies. I find it quite difficult to believe that a pirate board of that magnitude (and apparent openness) was not known at least to the local net, which would seem to imply that at least the local net failed to meet its responsibilities as outlined in the aforementioned documents. The formalization of IFNA can only lead to more rules - I am not saying this is good or bad per se. But I have to ask myself what will happen in the future when there are more rules, and more formal mechanisms for their enforcement, when we cannot abide by the simplest of rules now? Given that the money IFNA wants to take in will not be used for salaries, how will more time be budgeted to these problems? Understandings, Misunderstandings, and Questions IFNA Membership will not be required to be on the nodelist Fidonews Page 20 8 Sep 1986 This was the most re-assuring statement I read in the whole newsletter. It will be interesting to see how many pay the membership, and at what juncture. Fidonews Page 21 8 Sep 1986 Railroading and expediency There was a lot of discussion about railroading - that IFNA had basically determined what they were going to do and tried to just force it on the body of the meeting. I believe there are valid arguments on both sides of the discussion. On the one hand, if the initial articles of incorporation allow sufficient input, they are certainly not cast in concrete (it is just a lot of "legal stuff" in that sense.) It also makes sense that a well defined outline of the structure, and perhaps one or two alternatives are best prepared in small groups, and then presented to the body as a whole for discussion and affirmation. However, as tight as time is for everyone involved, I believe the IFNA officers dropped the ball by not giving the body as a whole a much better idea, in writing, of what was going to happen, what the structure will be, and what the alternatives are. This should have been in the hands of anyone coming to the meeting before they even left for it. It should have been in the hands of those of us who could not attend, with enough time for discussion across the net. There is an important question this raises. The monies IFNA takes in are NOT supposed to be allocated to salaries. (That is my understanding of the facts, not necessarily a statement of my feelings on the wisdom of the decision ... an important distinction.) Given this, the IFNA officers should not have significantly more time to dedicate to politics and organization in the future than they have in the past - in fact, as FidoNet grows, they will have to spend more time tending to the technology. Given all of this, what reason is there to expect IFNA to do a better job in the future than they have in the past? Rates of Growth An important point that seems to have been ignored in the discussions in the newsletter is the rate of growth. FidoNet has been growing at about 100% per year - doubling in size every year. If we assume that the $25 is contributed by every node, this means we are talking about a $100K budget in two years. While I have no reason to assume that everyone will kick in $25, I have a feeling that if IFNA does emerge alive from this quagmire, it will be close to 100%. I certainly have no reason to assume the rate of growth will subside - it would seem to me the national density of Fido population should approach what it is now in metropolitan areas - in other words, 10's of thousands of them. One statement that really bothered me was attributed to Ken Kaplan - that the $25 IFNA fee might be enforced for all nodes to LIMIT the growth of the net. I had always been under the impression the goal was to EXPAND the net - was I simply mistaken in this, or have the goals changed? Fidonews Page 22 8 Sep 1986 "They have been running it for 2.5 years and can keep running it" This is not a direct quote, but an attribution to TJ in the past newsletter. I cannot comment on the veracity of the attribution. However, the statement itself reveals a basic flaw in FidoNet. FidoNet is no longer Tom Jennings' or Ken Kaplan's or whoever's baby. It is ours, the sysops, as a whole. When I pay for something, I expect something for it As I mentioned before, I have this peculiar New England trait - when I pay for something, I expect something in return. One of the things I expect is a product that works. Fido does, largely, but in one or two areas, it does not. Particularly, Kermit and the limited range of modem support. It is extremely bothersome that TJ insists the Kermit problems are on the Columbia tape itself. For a number of technical reasons (the limited character set you can pump through a packet switched network) I HAVE to use Kermit of all the protocols offered by Fido. And despite Mr. Jenning's protestations, his doesn't work, and all the versions I have taken off the Columbia tape (about 6 in regular use, including Unix) do. Conversely, I don't generally pay for a pig in a poke From what I have read, this is exactly what was asked of the attendees at the Fido conference. A bottomless pit The $25 IFNA fee would probably not kill most Fido sysops. However, it does not stop there, and that is what scares a lot of us. TJ is talking $40 (effectively) for Fido itself. At that price, I assume that is for a single version, and the next one (and the next one) will cost close to the same. You can't run a Fido without ARC ($35-$50 depending on how you go about it.) You need a nodelist editor of some sort (another $25 or so). You probably need communications software - $50? So all the sudden, the relatively minimal cost becomes much much greater. More importantly, the rules are changed, in a very insidious way. We were all brought into the net under one set of assumptions - that we could get on board for nothing, get the latest and greatest software and documentation for nothing. and communicate cheaply. All the sudden, this seems to be changing - after 1000 sysops and god knows how many users have come to count on the network. Fidonews Page 23 8 Sep 1986 My Five Cents Version 12 should not be mandated until alternatives are sanctioned Fidonews Page 24 8 Sep 1986 One or two of the articles in the newsletter referenced Fido alternatives, and the documentation of the Fido protocols. I believe one of the most important steps to be taken is the separation of the technology from the politics. Tom Jennings has, without doubt or reservation, accomplished a masterful feat in Fido. But even the best of artists can have feet of clay. Feel free to jump all over me if I'm wrong (you will anyway) but one has to at least question the timing and motives of the changes of v12. It comes at a time when the existing standards are to be documented to the point of allowing the existance of clones. Will it be compatible with previous versions (and clones), and if not, how major will the changes be, and how forthcoming will TJ be with the specifications of those changes? It might be wise for IFNA not to make this transition until clones are available and sanctioned, if for no other reason than to eliminate possible conflict of interest charges. (It appears to me that you virtually MUST pay for V12, and FidoSoft is a profit making corporation (at least in the legal sense as I understand it) and that FidoSoft will therefore directly benefit from a decision by IFNA, a non-profit organization, to upgrade the network to v12.) DECUS parallels A lot of the structure outlined seems to reflect the roots of the St. Louis crowd - DECUS. This is not necessarily bad - DECUS does a great job at what it does. But there are crucial differences - most of them related to money. A DECUS member understands that membership is basically a ticket to spend more money, and comes from an environment where that spending can be afforded. A DECUS member understands the value of intangible things like conferences. I am not sure the same is true of your typical Fido sysop. The $25 annual membership to IFNA is not an expense charged to the company in most cases - it's a couple of pizzas not bought, a couple of movies not seen, or what have you. The sysop is going to want to see something tangible for that $25 - and I have not seen anyone say what more they will get than what they already have. (I am not saying I AGREE this is right, merely that I understand the perception.) There is another major difference between IFNA and DECUS. DECUS members have a much wider choice of vendors than potential IFNA members. Sure, you have to have a DEC processor to be a DECUS member - but last time I looked, an 11/23 cost around $500, with all the other components obtainable from vendors other than DEC. From what was presented in the newsletter, IFNA will not be sanctioning Fidoclones until after v12 is released. In other words, the traditional "friendly adversary" relationship between Fidonews Page 25 8 Sep 1986 DECUS and DEC will not exist between IFNA and FidoSoft. This is not necessarily bad per se, but it will continue to raise questions at every phase of IFNA/FidoNet development. Fidonews Page 26 8 Sep 1986 Source Code for Fido - Fido From IFNA, not FidoSoft IFNA should consider sanctioning and distributing a source level Fido clone. (This is not to say that all IFNA sanctioned Fido clones should be distributed in source -just the first ones.) I would much rather see IFNA charge more and be the sole source (or primary source) for Fido Software than the incestous relationship between IFNA and FidoSoft currently proposed. If TJ is not willing to contract to do this work, I believe IFNA should freeze FidoNet at v11 levels until a sanctioned, source version is available. There are arguments both for and against source code availability. The notable argument against is that it makes it simple to intentionally or unintentionally screw up the net. However, the political structure of the network in theory should keep these problems in check. On the other side, we currently have all our eggs in one basket, and from my point of view, the basket leaks. Beyond this, there are things the users want that TJ/IFNA say are not possible, or that TJ does not have the time or inclination to do. I maintain that very little is not possible, but by forcing others to start from total scratch, they make it nearly so. I have also heard arguments (that I do not believe) that there are trapdoors in Fido itself. I would feel better in any case if I could look at the source to determine this for myself. IFNA better become more realistic about other uses of the net I believe that many Fido sysops percieve FidoNet as an alternative to large, charged systems, with limitations. The original goals of the founders of the network did not exactly jibe with this. In particular, the main stated goal of the net is to allow for cheap, point to point messaging. The explosion of echomail on the network, and the desire for both broadcast, and truly private forms of messaging indicate that point to point messaging is only ONE of the percieved goals. I believe it will be difficult to resolve the political issues while maintaining the limited, point to point orientation of the net. In fact, while it may be simpler from TJ's point of view, I am not really clear on why Fido and FidoNet are two different things - it would seem a better design to simply allow for either at any time with sysop control - and it is my understanding this is what SEADog in fact does. For the formation, only a node number should be required to vote I agree that once IFNA is going and in place, that dues should be Fidonews Page 27 8 Sep 1986 paid. However, until that time, it seems reasonable to me that a node number, and only a node number should be required to vote on Fidonews Page 28 8 Sep 1986 the initial bylaws. The problem is not money - it is time One basic gap in the logic of all the articles on the conference/IFNA formation is the arguments about money. Money is not really the problem - Time is. A number of people said that the phone costs for distributing nodelists was not the major cost of running IFNA - it was the costs of hand-holding and question answering. If this is true (which seems very reasonable to me), then those costs are minimal compared to the cost of Ken Kaplan's time doing same, or whoever is IFNA. To reject out of hand the use of IFNA funds for salaries seems like a foolish place to begin. I am NOT questioning the motives of IFNA, TJ, or anyone I believe that everyone involved is trying to do their best by FidoNet. However, we started out with statements about FidoNet being what its sysops percieve it to be - and while the motives behind the actions of IFNA are probably above board, they have not done a good job in keeping the perception of same on the part of the sysops. IFNA must understand that the symbiotic balance between TJ and IFNA and the body of sysops as a whole has changed. In the past, the network operators could basically dictate the operation of the net as they pleased. But the success of the net, while due to their decisions, depends on the body of sysops. And at this time, the body of sysops are in a position to survive without IFNA. I am NOT advocating this - I believe it would be tragic. But it scares me that people pointed this out to IFNA in very blunt terms in the newsletter. IFNA must choose its path carefully, and perhaps more importantly, publicly. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 29 8 Sep 1986 A CRY FOR SUPPORT! DEDICATED TO V I E T N A M V E T E R A N S Their Wives, Lovers, and Friends Dedicated to those of us who know the true cost of war And have paid the cost! A unique concept in the electronic bulletin board communic- ations medium has come to being in the San Francisco South Bay city of San Jose, California. Its overwhelming success during its first 30 days of existence has made quite evident the fact that such a public service was needed. Many call seeking solace and support in it's message bases, others simply to rekindle the friendships born in that conflict. The sysops, Todd and Nancy, are more than qualified to host such a public service, as they are both Vietnam veterans. Todd served as a Medical Field Surgeon attached to the United States Army's 101st Airborne, having survived the horrors of being a Prisoner of War in a Laotian prison camp. Nancy, his wife, fought her war years after Todd returned from the steamy jungles of Southeast Asia. Together they fought to keep alive a rela- tionship that was everything to them, and succeeded only after a bitter struggle where everything was nearly lost. Both of them feel a certain obligation to share themselves with the countless men and women who are still fighting their war, with the hopes that somehow through their empathetic inter- vention, they might help some of them find an end to that war. It is also their hope to enlighten those who were not a part of this `war' in such a way as historians will never succeed in doing. Now, Don Kulha, sysop of the Survival Communication Forum 125/7, another Fido bulletin board north of the San Francisco Bay in Santa Rosa, California has joined in Todd and Nancy's efforts to provide a place where not only veterans of the Vietnam `war' can meet to share their thoughts and feelings, but where those who love and care for them can find solice as well. Something good is happening in California! What Todd, Nancy, and Don need now is your support in making a good thing even better! The time has come to begin a national Echo-mail Vietnam Veteran's Conference where we can bring other concerned persons together all across this United States of America! As the largest amateur network in the world, we can make this a grand success! If you would be interested in joining with us in this service, let us know by sending us a message. Echo- mail is rather a mystery to both the LooneyBin and the Survival Communications BBS's, so even if you don't feel the call to be- come part of what w are doing by joining in the national con- ference, you can still support us with advice regarding the in- tricacies involved in setting such a medium up. Any support you can offer will be greatly appreciated. Fidonews Page 30 8 Sep 1986 We're looking forward to "hearing" from you soon! Sincerely Yours, Todd and Nancy Looney Don Kulha The LooneyBin 143/27 Survival Comm. Forum 125/7 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 31 8 Sep 1986 ================================================================= FOR SALE ================================================================= Now available from Micro Consulting Associates!! Public Domain collection - 550+ "ARC" archives - 20+ megs of software and other goodies, and that's "archived" size! When unpacked, you get approximately 28 megabytes worth of all kinds of software, from text editors to games to unprotection schemes to communications programs, compilers, interpreters, etc... Over 66 DS/DD diskettes!! This collection is the result of more than 15 months of intensive downloads from just about 150 or more BBS's and other sources, all of which have been examined, indexed and archived for your convenience. Starting a Bulletin Board System? Want to add on to your software base without spending thousands of dollars? This is the answer!!! To order the library, send $100 (personal or company check, postal money order or company purchase order) to: Micro Consulting Associates, Fido 1/110 Post Office Box 4296 200-1/2 E. Balboa Boulevard Balboa, Ca. 92661-4296 Please allow 3 weeks for delivery of your order. Note: No profit is made from the sale of the Public Domain software in this collection. The price is applied entirely to the cost of downloading the software over the phone lines, running a BBS to receive file submissions, and inspecting, cataloguing, archiving and maintaining the files. Obtaining this software yourself through the use of a computer with a modem using commercial phone access would cost you much more than what we charge for the service... The following format choices are available: - IBM PC-DOS Backup utility - Zenith MS-DOS 2.11 Backup Utility - DSBackup - Fastback - ACS INTRCPT 720k format (Requires a 1.2m floppy drive and PC-DOS 3.2) - Plain ol' files (add $50) Add $30 if you want the library on 1.2 meg AT disks (more expensive disks). There are no shipping or handling charges. California residents add 6% tax. For each sale, $10 will go to the FidoNet Administrators. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Fidonews Page 32 8 Sep 1986 ================================================================= NOTICES ================================================================= The Interrupt Stack 24 Aug 1989 Voyager 2 passes Neptune. If you have something which you would like to see on this calendar, please send a message to FidoNet node 1/1. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Generic George by Bruce White, 109/612 +-------------------------------------------------+ | Honey, you wanna come | | play a game with my | | joystick? | | Oh, not tonight, dear. \ | | I have a headache. \ | | / ?? \ ____\__ | | / \ \ |_| \ | | / _____ |\ | | | _ | | | | ______ | |_| | | | | __(______)_|_____|___ | | | ||-----------------|| | | | ______ || || | | | \ {} / || || | | |(c) 1986 bw \__/ ||-----------------||__|__| +-------------------------------------------------+ ----------------------------------------------------------------- A new net has been created in Southern California, net 166. This net consists of members of net 103 that have split off to form our own net due to disagreements about net management procedures with the 103 host. If you are in Southern California and would like to join us, send us a mail message to 166/1. The nodelist will show the new net starting with NODELIST.248. Node 103/511 (DataFlex Fido) is now the host of net 166. -----------------------------------------------------------------