Subj : FTS-0001 To : Werner Dworak From : Steve Quarrella Date : Thu Jan 25 2001 04:00 pm WD> I see it similar with ISDN-only and IP-only nodes. As long as Personally, I think the FTS-1 thing we've been discussing is more of an attempt to police our current ranks and scare off existing sysops -- come on, when's the last time you dealt with a rash of systems using a proprietary protocol with which hardly anybody could connect? -- when I think we should spend our time on the ISDN/IP side of things, luring THOSE hobbyists into Fidonet like we lured sysops of the good ol' POTS systems during Fidonet's heyday. It may be facile for me to say this, but we sure don't get a whole lot of publicity. :-/ WD> ISDN was exotic, it was not a good idea to be only reachable WD> by ISDN. Now in western Europe, it is no problem. The same It's so cost-prohibitive, at least in my area, that it's uncommon. Today, it's DSL, where available (and not where I live :-/). WD> holds true for IP (binkp). At present I would advise strongly WD> against IP-only, but soon it can be common. I started an IP-only net here in Region 19 near the end of my first term as RC, and while I won't say we're thriving, we've got a good, solid bunch of people, across three of the four states in the Region (and we may be getting someone in the fourth very soon). SQ>> and I'd like to think that if connectivity fails, we'll fall SQ>> back to the spirit on which the net was founded and find a SQ>> workaround. WD> Yes. A total interconnectivity never existed. I say only WD> Bell-103 and V.21. The author of FrontDoor has brought this up in the middle of heated discussions about standards (and the Z2C and I discussed this over dinner last summer), and I agree not only with this, but with his comment that we should be spending more time working on who CAN connect instead of who cannot. SQ>> If the guy's system won't speak FTS-1, FTS-6, or EMSI, for SQ>> example, THEN I'd say we've got a problem. WD> Indeed. I think, normally every system should at least do two WD> of that protocols. But at last, if it cannot be done, I'm WD> satified with one protocol. That's probably the way to go. SQ>> Hell, how many people do you think we could kick out of SQ>> Fidonet for failing to observe ZMH, even though we connect SQ>> with them regularly? :-) WD> A great many! 8-) In the beginning the ZMH was WD> indispensable. But now it is no longer that important. The only time I think it's critical is when you're a coordinator and you're trying to determine if someone is on the air or off the air. It's only fair to be able to say "Well, I tried you during ZMH for the past ten days, and got nothing, so Down you go. But I'll be happy to remove Down from your nodelisting for the next nodelist." It's unfair to anybody that they should have to chase you down and dial you 24/7 to see whether you're still around. However, someone who gets a bug up their backside because you weren't up during ZMH for three nights, even though you've been pushing mail around during the day, well, I encourage them to take a pill. SQ>> I use the barter system: Let me buy you a t-shirt or a CD, and you send SQ>> me a registration code. :-) WD> There you have the even bigger problem to transfer goods. That has not been a problem for me, but as you say, key transfers also work. --- * Origin: Fnord (1:393/9005) .