Subj : Re: Irex and Argue
To   : Sean Dennis
From : Alan Ianson
Date : Sun May 26 2019 02:14 pm

> Internet Red, like Telegard, died the minute its author graduated college
> and started making money.

Maximus comes to mind too. Thankfully the source for Maximus was released so
anyone interested could move that product forward if they could/wanted to.

> However, Charles can be found if needed.  Tim Strike, the author of
> Telegard, actively avoids his BBSing past.  A few years ago, I tracked down
> Tim and called him at his work.  As soon as I identified myself, Tim hung up
> on me.

Tim did what he did with Telegard freely. He never asked anyone for anything. I
 think he did awesome things with Telegard and gave it to anyone who wanted to
use it.

> I have heard a bunch of bullshit excuses from both authors about not
> releasing their code.  Charles, at least, had a good reason: the use of
> commercial libraries (though that code could be rewritten).  Tim bleated
> about copyright issues and other trivial things that were, to me, an obvious
> attempt at pinning the blame on everyone but himself.

Those were not trivial issues to Tim. Telegard was a full system when Tim
started work on it, it was full of code that was not his and he didn't have the
 right or permission to release it.

I don't think the source for Internet Rex or Telegard was ever on the table. It
 would be nice if it was but not all software is open source.

> So that's why I dropped both products.  At least now, if something breaks, I
> can fix it.

You are in a different boat than I am. I am not a programmer so if I have a
problem with software I can only report it. If the software is to be upgraded
further it needs to be done by the author of the software whether the source is
 available or not.

> Years ago, in the IREX echo when Charles was still active, I was complaining
> about a lack of support.  He angrily replied to me, offering to give me my
> registration fee back.  I informed him the money was not the point.  He
> immediately disappeared into the ether after that.

I don't think those who write and support BBS software can ever make enough $$$
 from it to make their living supporting it.

In every case of active authors of BBS related software today they do it
because they love it. I have and do support authors of shareware and opensource
 software.

> I have been supporting my own programs for 21 years now without any issue
> but it's never been about the money for me.

That is great, it really is. There are few BBS software authors active today so
 I encourage you to continue.

> Charles' and Tim's actions pointed out where their loyalty lies and it's not
> with their users.

I hold Charles and Tim in high regard and I think both of them did the best
they could.

Also Scott Dudley. I think he was a master of what he was doing. I've hoped
over the years that he would find free time to continue to update Maximus and
Squish but it never happened.

> If I were you, I'd use something else than IRex.  Its BinkD and FTP server
> are both buggy as hell.

I don't use IRex anymore but there are two links here who still use it so I
guess it works for them.

--- BBBS/Li6 v4.10 Toy-4
 * Origin: The Rusty MailBox - Penticton, BC Canada (1:153/757)

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