Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555) wrote to Steven Horn at 20:36 on 06 Jan 2003:

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

Presumably the CRC information that MakeNL or NLmake adds to my stub is
also helpful.:-)

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

Best that you re-read your plain English:

The FidoNet NodeList is compiled so that computer systems within FidoNet
;A     may communicate with each other.  Use and intra-FidoNet distribution
;A     rights are granted to all FidoNet system operators for the purposes of
;A     communication within FidoNet or applying for a FidoNet node number.

Note that staement starts with the statement that it is compiled "so
that computer systems within FidoNet may communicate with each other."
 But it then states that "Use [which is not qualified] and
intra-Fidonet distribution rights are granted to all Fidonet system
operators for the purpose of communication within Fidonet..."  In
other words, if I need to take a look at the nodelist to facilitate
communication, I have the right to do so.   

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

However, it does affect distribution.  Amazing amounts of Chinese cooking
wine, lysol and other substances containing alcohol are stocked and sold in
North American skid rows. 

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

Again, who holds the copyright?  And since Fidonet is an unincorporated
entity, it does not have "members" as that term is normally used
in corporate law.

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

But the manufacturer or distributor does not limit the use of the nodelist.
 It only limits the purpose for which the nodelist may be used. 

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

Nodelisting is part of a communication process and a listing provides
information about a system which is useful to others.  My listing tells you
clearly that it is an ION and that it should not be dialled by a POTS
mailer and it is up to you to decide how you want to deal with that.  I am
under no obligation to list my system in such a way that yours will not
dial it. 
 MvdV> It should be your concern. As I said the purpose of a line in the
 MvdV> nodelist is to serve others. Your point iof view is selfish as it
 MvdV> disregards the needs of others.

I disagree strongly because my nodelisting is fully descriptive and
accurate.  What your system does with that information is something you
have to deal with.

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

You have not been overly concerned about our needs, have you?

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

One does what one has to do to meet one's own needs.  I never ranted at the
world because I had to replace my Binkley, my tossers and packer or my
reader.   

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

 MvdV> I did....:-(

And it got you nowhere because Fidonet is not an entity which is frozen in time.

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

No one is out to overpower you.  Some of us are pursuing forms of
communication made possible by new technologies and we are not forcing you
to come along or fall into line.  What we are asking for is accomodation
and that is not overly demanding. 

 MvdV> You are the one that wants change...

And what is wrong with change?  When did you change your 1200 bps modem to
a 2400 bps modem?  And when did you reach the dizzying heights of 19.2,
33.6 or 57.6?

 MvdV> Did you?

I became a point in November 1988 and flew my first node number in October 1991.

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

At least I've published the results of my experiments with XlaxNode and
NLMake.  As for your suggestion that a person cannot advance a change
unless he or she knows the full consequences of the same, it is self
serving and would throttle virtually any development.  After all, what IONs
are proposing is highly unlikely to lead to anyone's injury or death.  

 MvdV> The world of Fidonet is bigger than Bink.

That it is.:-)

 MvdV> I have been told how to stop it form dialing 000- numbers. I have
 MvdV> not been told how to get the mail delivered without manual
 MvdV> intervention.

I suspect that we will see more bridge nodes and possibly more host routing.

 MvdV> Also the world of FidoNet is bigger than that of InterMail.

That it is.:-)

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

How could I tell you?  There is no "general" case of how mailers
work.  Binkley does its thing one way, FrontDoor another and D'Bridge still
another.

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

 MvdV> How do you know that there is not some weird mailer out there
 MvdV> that will try anyhow?

If that possibility existed, it likely would have done so before the first
ION came along.

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

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

Come up with another keyword and I might bite.  But I'm far from the only
person in FidoNet who is of the view that the Pvt keyword should not be
used for a node that is not private.  

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

I have considerable sympathy for those who cannot update.  Those who will
not have made a conscious choice.

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

 MvdV> Not very often.

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

I thought I'd heard of most operating systems but FLEX is totally new to
me.  Best I do a google search. 

 MvdV> Then one day I reluctantly let go of it. I changed jobs and my
 MvdV> boss shoved an IBM clone through my throat. I delved into DOS

I think that expression is "down my throat":-)

 MvdV> 3.x but never got as proficient in it as I was with Flex. No
 MvdV> time. At some point I updated to DOS 5. In the time of flex I
 MvdV> never managed to fill uo the 16 MB hard drive I eventually got
 MvdV> it hooked up with, but for the IBM clone 32 Mb disks didn't seem
 MvdV> to be enough, so I had to upgrade. Leter I changedd to Novell DOS
 MvdV> 7 because it ha built in networking and also because I wanted no
 MvdV> business with the monopoly of Microsoft.

Three changes is a fair number.  I think I want straight from DOS 3.3 to DOS 6.22.
 
 MvdV> Every time the machine got faster and bigger I seemed to lose
 MvdV> some control. As I said, with my 8 bit Flex i could find and
 MvdV> control every bit. With the IBM clones I was faced with the fact
 MvdV> that i couldn;t get some application to work with some
 MvdV> videocards. Replacing it would solve the problem, but I never
 MvdV> could tell why. At every  step "upward" I seemed to lose more and
 MvdV> more control and with it lost some of the fun.

That says a great deal about your attitudes toward FidoNet.  I considered
working out the glitches to be the fun.

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

I'm told that one can get some pretty reasonable emulations with Linux but
I rather like Windows -- I've been running variants of it since 1993,

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

Apart from the fact that I use various Windows applications extensively, I
do have fun, especially when I am on the web.  But then I picked out our
vacuum cleaner because of the way it handled.

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

And what, in your opinion is "properly" written software?  I take
it that you would not include software which used undocumented calls.

 MvdV> i don't think that is an option in my case. My FidoNet machine is
 MvdV> not powerful enough to run Windows and frankly i am not sure the
 MvdV> software i use will run under Windows. I would have to go back to

You could experiment with that.  I found that I could run all of Fidonet
software in a DOS box under Windows 3.1, 95 or 98. 2000 has been more iffy.

 MvdV> DOS 5 or 6, and that would mean that many of my batch files would
 MvdV> not work any more as they rely on Novell specific batch commands.

So you've become a prisoner of what you run in your home.:-)

 MvdV> I am the R28 point coordinator. It has taken me a lot of time to
 MvdV> tune those batch files and ancillary programmes to smoothly and
 MvdV> reliable compile the segments and issue the weekly diff for the
 MvdV> pointlist.

That's a feeling I would share. 

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

Enjoy a different role in life and do it for yourself.:-)

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

And how many of those are there?  Fidonet was synonymous with playing
around with computers.

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

I've always wanted to know what was under the hood and did some
programming.  But the hardware is something I have never controlled fully
and I have never wanted to.

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

But what if you wanted to upgrade?  Does the task then become more acceptable? 

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

I think a person can love more than one clock.:-) 

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

Cope.  My wife and I split up after nine years of marriage and we lived
apart for alomost 10 years before we got back together. 

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

How do you do a fox hunt by car?

 MvdV> And the reason routing is impractical or undesirable is that
 MvdV> there is no convenient calling to or from a host. The two go hand
 MvdV> in hand...

Face it, when one lives in Whitehorse, there is no convenient calling
anywhere.  You pick the best of several bad choices. 

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

No but I still can't meet with other sysops and I've always seen a net as
social organization.


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

Why should I be?  He's in Saskatoon and I'm in Whitehorse, 2000 miles away.

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

I'll look at that one down the road because what you are saying is that
echomail is a variant of a Usenet newsgroup.  I still send my echomail to
someone unless I write to "all".

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

Why do you think I went IP?

 MvdV> Point of fact is that they have no reason to suspect me and so
 MvdV> they do not monitor my telephone. Point od fact is also that they
 MvdV> routinely monitor the InterNet without having specific reason to
 MvdV> suspect anyone.


Specific reason may be a bit much but they are likely to belooking for
individuals or traffic patterns.

 MvdV> Dream on...

I'm about as worried about what the CIA or NSA does as you are about the
integrity of your telephone line.

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

What happened in your younger years to make you so concerned about the
interception of your communications? 

 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".

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

That definition means more than a listing of convenience.

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

I think some RCs would be surprised by that revelation.  However, we will
let it pass.

Take care,

Steven Horn (steven_a_horn{at}yahoo.ca)
Moderator, ALASKA_CHAT 
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+