Subj : Re: SSH on BBSes
To   : Arelor
From : boraxman
Date : Fri Apr 15 2022 13:52:21

 Ar>  > Fixating on the captive BBS experience misses the forest for
 Ar>  > the trees.  The power and flexibility of what you get out of a
 Ar>  > timesharing system is much greater than what you get out of
 Ar>  > any BBS package.  Moreover, it can be customized by the user
 Ar>  > in a way that a BBS never can, and systems can be federated
 Ar>  > using open protocols; don't like the default message editor?
 Ar>  > No problem; just use a different one.
 Ar> 
 Ar> I often think this myself.
 Ar> 
 Ar> But then BBS packages offer convenience for the administrator, that he
 Ar> can deploy a "thing" with somehow automated user management which won't
 Ar> let the users access arbitrary resources within the machine.
 Ar> 
 Ar> I can build a telnet interface capable of letting people connect and send
 Ar> messages back and forth using traditional Unix utilities, but then I
 Ar> also have to set permissions for the system users involved and probably
 Ar> build some unveil() and pledge() wrappers.
 Ar> 
 Ar> A BBS package is ready to go. A portal you have to deploy takes time.
 Ar> 
 Ar> It sounds as a fun project though.
 Ar> 

The Timesharing system would be more suitable in say a work environment, an academic environment, somewhere where people are working together.  If the systems are workstations, linked, it makes more sense.  You can work on the machine and communicate at the same interface.  Indeed, this was the original intention.  Talk wasn't added to unix just so that people could use a terminal only to talk, it was for people sharing the computing resources to talk.

But if the access to the terminal, the machine is intended ONLY for communication, the BBS is better.

I've used both, the BBS extensively, but also a shared public Unix.  The former, in terms of usability is light years ahead (and in some ways, ahead of even Social Media)_.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)

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