Hello Steven,

 MvdV>> Of course it is. Just not by you. It is compiled by the ZC from
 MvdV>> the various segments from the lower *C's.

 SH> It's been awhile since I submitted my stub but my
 SH> recollectyion was that it was raw.

Sure. And the ZC puts all these segments together, removes the comment
lines, adds a header, a trailer and a checksum. A process generally
referredd to as "assembling" or "compiling".

 MvdV>> Anyway, it should be clear that when you read the nodelist as a
 MvdV>> human you are making a use of it for which it was not intended.

 SH> That is what I would call a debatable conclusion.

It says so in plain English in the header. What more do you want?

 SH> It is clear from the discussions in FTSC_Public that I'm far from
 SH> the only person who does

So what? The intended use of rubber solvent is to repair tires. That
doesn't change because a growing number of people use it to get high on.

 SH> and I also note that when something is in the public domain,

Who says the nodelist is in the public domain? As I read the copyright
notice it is for members only.

 SH> it may be used for any purpose to which it lends itself.

I say when you use something fpr a purpose not intended by the manufacturer
or distributer you are on your own and all claims are void.

 MvdV>> Yes, it does. Properly listed IP nodes show relevant contact
 MvdV>> information and therefore they are not private.

 SH> In which case they should not have to use a flag which has
 SH> a particular limited meaning for POTS nodes.

Why not? Remember that the purpose of a nodelisting is not for one's own
benefit it is for the benefit of /others/. So why refuse to carry a flag
that is of paramount to others?

 MvdV>> That is because you fail to understand or acknowledge that PVT is
 MvdV>> not the same as private.

 SH> As one might say, a BMW is not a Honda. You and others have
 SH> decided that a flag with a clear meaning should use "Pvt"
 SH> as a flag for a purpose for which it was not intended.

So what?

 SH> That is not my problem or my concern.

It should be your concern. As I said the purpose of a line in the nodelist
is to serve others. Your point iof view is selfish as it disregards the
needs of others.

 MvdV>> Documenting Pvt as "not dialable by POTS" is fully
consistent.

 SH> Only to POTS nodes who may no longer be the majority of
 SH> nodes in Fidonet.

So? Are their needs to be ignored just because they no longer may be a
majority some day?

 MvdV>> Yes, it is needed because that is the only way to keep things
 MvdV>> downward compatible.

 SH> Have you ever thought that it might be advisable for you to
 SH> upgrade?

Of course. I however find thge idea of being forced to upodate disgusting.

 MvdV>> I don't see why in a hobby environmemt there should ever be a
 MvdV>> need to force people to give that up. If someone or someones want
 MvdV>> to change the network beyond the point that it is no longer
 MvdV>> compatible with the existing one, he or she should start their
 MvdV>> own network rather than force the existing members to change
 MvdV>> against their will.

 SH> You might have tried that argument when the first ION
 SH> appeared.

I did....:-(

 SH> However, there are now a fair number of us out there.

So it seem I will be overpowered. I don't like it one bit.

 MvdV>> "The general good". Yes, I have heard that one
before. Why does
 MvdV>> it always work against me?

 SH> No more than your "general good" works against me.

Your are the one that wants change...

 SH> And you may have forgotten that I was a member of Fidonet before
 SH> you joined.

Did you?

 MvdV>> You are the one that wants to change the specs. The onus of proof
 MvdV>> that it will do no harm is on you.

 SH> I think others who have more technical skills may wind up
 SH> doing it for the rest of us.

If you do not think you have the technical skills to porve that what you
want does no harm, you shluld not engage in the promoting of those ideas
either.

 MvdV>> How?

 SH> In Binkley, I have the choice of using modem types, cost
 SH> values and .BSY flags.

The world of Fidonet is bigger than Bink.

 SH> I gather you have been told how to
 SH> achieve the needed rfesult with Intermail.

I have been told how to stop it form dialing 000- numbers. I have not been
told how to et the lail delivered without manual intervention.

Also the world o FidoNet is bigger than that of InterMail.

Now tell me how to stop a POTS mailer form dialing 000- numbers in the general case.

 SH> Even if it dialled 000, what would it connect to?

In my country using my provider: numver unobtainable tone.  In my country
using Tele2 as provider: a voice recording. In Australia: the emergency
number. In the general case; I do not know. Nobody knows; too many
variables.

 MvdV>> Allowing -Unpublished- without  Pvt is revolution, not evolution.

 SH> Apart from what the FTSC will come up with, why is it
 SH> revolution?  Mailers won't call it

How do yoiu know that there is not some weird mailer out there that will try anyhow?

 SH> and IONs don't need a telephone number.

But legacy mailers may expect a number if the Pvt keyword is not present.

 MvdV>> Yes and as I pointed out, that was in the early days when there
 MvdV>> were only a handful of nodes. Doing such a thing now will make
 MvdV>> many leave.

 SH> Which would only be a problem if POTS nodes can't be
 SH> accommodated.  But many can so who would be left?

The ones that can or will not update and whose present software will no
longer function under the new conditions.

 MvdV>> And that is what I object to. Change the standards so that people
 MvdV>> will be forced to replace their software.

 SH> How many times have you changed your operating system.

Not very often.

My first operating systemn that deserved the designation was FLEX for the
Motorola 6809 series. I dissected it, took it apart, rewrote it. I knew
where to find every bit and how to manipulate it. I could make it dance in
circles timed to the clock cycle. I became The number one Dutch expert on
it.

Then one day I reluctantly let go of it. I changed jobs and my boss shoved
an IBM clone through my throat. I delvedd into DOS 3.x but never got as
proficient in it as I was with Flex. No time. At some point I updated to
DOS 5. In the time of flex I never managedd to fill uo the 16 MB hard drive
I eventually got it hooked up with, but for the IBM clone 32 MD disks
didn't seem to be enough, so I had to upgrade. Leter I changedd to Novell
DOS 7 because it ha buildd in networking and alos because I wanted no
business with the monopoly of microsoft.

Every time the machine got faster and bigger I seemed to lose some control.
As I said, with mu 8 bit Flex i could find and control every bit. With the
IBM clones I was faced with the fact that i couldn;t get some applictaion
to work with somne videocards. Replacing it would solve the problem, but I
never could tell why. At every  step "upward" I seemed to lose
more and more control and with it lost some of the fun.

Recently I have gotten myself a system running Windows. I had to. It is
like a telephone. At some point yo just can't function any more without it.
People send me disks and e-mails with articles in MS-word and other things
that just aren't usable without a computer running MS windows.

I use it, but I don't like it. The new machines can do MUCH more than my
old home made FLEX system. But is is no fun any more. It has just become
another tool like a vacuum cleaner or a reridgerator. It is no fun at all
any more. I don't use the Windows machine unless there is a reason...

 MvdV>> base. I suspect it doesn't go well with Novell Dos because
 MvdV>> it uses some undocumented system calls. In other words dirty
 MvdV>> programming. Later I found out I am not the only one having
 MvdV>> those problems.

 SH> Some years ago I played with DR DOS and notwithstanding
 SH> claims of total compatibility, it just wasn't.

My experience is that /properly/ written software will run flawlessly under
Novell Dos.

 SH> But I changed the operating system instead of the application.

i don't think that is an option in my case. My FidoNet machine is not
powerfull enough to run Windows and frankly i am not sure the software i
sue will run under Winddows. I woud have to go back to DOS 5 or 6, and that
would mean that many of my batch files would not work any more as they rely
on Novell specific batch commands. I am the R28 point coordinator. It has
taking me a lot of time to tune those batch files andauxillary programmes
to smoothly and reliable compile the segments and issue the weekly diff for
the pointlist.

Nah, I think I just pack in and leave if I am forced to do it all over again. :-(

 MvdV>> If you want people to leave, forcing them to replace their
 MvdV>> software is the surest way to go.

 SH> Only if they are traditionalists wedded to what they have.

Or if they no longer enjoy playing around with computers as such, but stay
on for the fun of Fidonet itself.

For you it is different. You aren't a programmer. You never had the kick of
totally understanding what you are doing and having the machine dance to
your wishes.  To you upgrading software may be a challange. To me it isn't.
Not any more. Not since I lost control of the hardware.

To me upgrading is just a chore like washing the dishes and cleaning the
house. So I do not know what  will happen if I am forced to do that in
order to keep connected to FidoNet. There is a fair change I will just give
up on it.

 MvdV>> I don't want another clock. I like the one I've got.

 SH> And what would you do if it quit working?

I'll try to repair it and if I can not I will find an alternative. But it
will not be *MY CLOCK*. It will just be a tool to tell me the time...

What will you do when your wife dies? (Assuming you have one)

Let me tel you. I know what I did.

You will move on. I did. But there will be some things you will just let go
off. Me and my wife, we were both hams. We used to participate in the local
club's fox hunt by car every month.

That was 6 years ago. I now have a new girl. We do things together but I
will never run that monthly fox hunt by car again.

 MvdV>> Yes there is. Being in a net is the default situation. That is
 MvdV>> how the network was designed to optimally function. Being a RIN
 MvdV>> is the exception that requires justification. The primary reason
 MvdV>> to be a RIN is that routing is impractical or undesirable.

 SH> The primary reason is (as you mention later) that calling
 SH> is inconvenient.

And the reason routing is inpractical or undesuaraible is that there is no
convenient calling to or from a host. The two go hand in hand...

 SH> In any case, I received my RIN from Bob Satti who was then
 SH> RC17 but later became Z1C and then IC. I respect his judgment.

Things have changed since then.

You have an IP connection now. The "inconvenient calling"
argument no longer applies.

 MvdV>> Then your mode of operation has always been against
 MvdV>> an efficient network.

 SH> Only by your defintion which makes no sense.  As a RIN who
 SH> could not call anyone conveniently, it was both efficient
 SH> for me and the network that I route mail.

Route mail through whome? You got your routed mail from /someone/ didn't
you? If that was convenient why couldn't you be in the same net as the one
you got that routed mail from?

[ echomail is not routed ]

 SH>> How do you think yours gets here?

 MvdV>> It gets to you via a direct connection with what you
 MvdV>> call your uplink.

 SH> Try again.  It passes through six nodes before it gets
 SH> here: 280/5003, 2432/200, 774/605/123/500, 106/2000 and
 SH> 140/1.  Do you not look at Path statements?

I know what path statements are.

Yes the message pass through all those nodes. But they are not /routed/
through them.  Only netmail is routed. In the header of a netmail you will
find the address of the final destination. In echomail you do not find
that. Echomail does not have a final destination. The only estination you
will find in echomail is the address of the direct up- or downlink. It is
send there and from there it is sent again to all links. That is not
routing,
that is broadcasting.

 SH>>> Being an RIN is based on location.

 MvdV>> No, network topology it is beased on "convenient calling".

 SH>> The nearest node to me (also an RIN) is 1100 kilometers away.

 MvdV>> So what?

 SH> Clearly you don't comprehend that all telephone calls I
 SH> wish to make outside the Yukon will be long distance.  I
 SH> attribute that to location but it is certainly not
 SH> "convenient" calling.

Since you are IP that no longer aplies. Every IP node in the world is
within convenient calling range for you.

 MvdV>> I don't want to use the InterNet, it is monitored by the CIA.

 SH> Who are you trying to kid?  If a law enforcement agency had
 SH> any reason to believe you were breaking the law and the
 SH> offence was serious, your telephone would already be
 SH> monitored.

Point of fact is that they have npo reason to suspect me and so they do not
monitor my telephone. Point od fact is also that they routinely monitor the
InteNet without having specific reason to supect anyone.

 SH> It is also misleading to suggest that the CIA
 SH> monitors the whole Internet.  Not only would their
 SH> computers not handle the load but even if they could, they
 SH> could not cope with the masses of data they would
 SH> accumulate.

Dream on...

 SH> In addition, if your assertion were correct,
 SH> it is likely that the routed Fidonet packets you send now
 SH> would also be in the CIA's hands because they are already
 SH> carried over the Internet.

They could be. That's what I don't like about Fido over the InterNet.

 MvdV>> Yes, it does. The host is the node carrying the net/0 number and
 MvdV>> the Host keyword. There is no such node in your "net".

 SH> Apart from my private arrangements, RINs are listed under
 SH> the RC for a good reason.

Good reason?

Yes of course they are listed there for a good reason. The good reason
being " by definition".

That doesn't make the Region/0 your host.

 SH>  And if you send mail to me to 1:17/0, I will get it.

If you send mail for me to 2:2/0 I will get it. If you send mail for me to
2:280/4321 I wil get it. If you send me for me to 3:774/605 I will get it.

That don't make any of them my host.

Regards, Michiel

--- InterMail 2.29k