Subj : New Format  vs  DNS
To   : Peter Knapper
From : Jasen Betts
Date : Mon Jul 22 2002 07:49 am

Hi Peter.

 PK> I can certainly see the perspective for keeping a Fidonet
 PK> nodelist, however I still think we need to be EXTREMELY careful
 PK> about attempting to modify the current nodelist.

Yeah the SLF should be frozen or even rolled back a bit.

 PK> Like it or not,
 PK> we are likely to have POTS only nodes around for a while, so we
 PK> CANNOT break any existing S/W they may be using.

Gotta keet thap old internet software working too.

 PK> We MUST in all cases remain completely compatible with current practise

I'd prefer something that works better.

 PK> While I can also see your rationale here, I still think there are
 PK> better ways of doing this. I don't believe we need a new nodelist
 PK> format, simply because I do NOT believe we need a NEW Nodelist.

So this DNS thing you're pushing is not a new nodelist?

We need a new nodelist format because the old one is full and that's
stifling development.

 PK> What I think we really need in addition to the connectivity issues
 PK> for IP nodes (such as using DNS for contact info), is a Fidonet
 PK> MEMBERSHIP list, IE something that tells a Fidonet node what
 PK> "other" Fidonet nodes actually exist. It seems (to me) that this
 PK> is what people are really talking about.

According to P4 the nodelist is the membership list.

 PK> Somehow we need to marry
 PK> that need up with the technical information need, without breaking
 PK> the current Nodelist. Thats no small task in itself

 PK> I see the simplest "solution" for the Nodelist, is to provide a
 PK> method for "listing" IP nodes, that does not break current POTS
 PK> nodes.

List them as PVT... nothing radical there.

 PK> All that needs to happen to the Nodelist is for Fidonet to
 PK> come up with an agreed way of pointing people to the DNS for
 PK> contact info

probably the best way is to use their fidonet address in fidonet.org

 PK> My IP node works by using all the little bits I have put together
 PK> myself (mainly OS/2 Rexx coding as a wrapper to executables), the
 PK> only thing missing is a "common" IP Nodelist type format, and all
 PK> that needs is an agreement between all of Fidonet over how its
 PK> going to handle this part of the problem

So go for it, find some DNS info work out your formats, have a lookd at
the new BIND (dunno if it'll run on OS/2, but it does do dynamic DNS which
is probably useful.) ... just don't expect the rest of us to live with
the current broken nodelist. (if it wasn't broken there wouldn't be people
trying to fix it)

 -=> Bye <=-

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