Hello Alex.

01 Jun 06 22:09, you wrote to me:

 MV>> There is a train museum in the nearby city of Utrecht here. Most
 MV>> trains are on stationary display, but some are still running and
 MV>> yoi can make short trips with them:

 MV>> http://wwhttp://www.spoorwegmuseum.nl/en/index.html

 AS> Then it's very unusual museum. They risk to lose their displays.

There is always that risk. The museum can be hit by lightning, an
earthquake can bring it down, someone could explode a bomb in it. Yes and
when one rides the trains, they could be in an accident. The risks are
small and managible. And riding the old trains is much more fun than just
watching them from behind glass.

 AS>>> Zone 7 never existed because big boys never allowed it to
 AS>>> appear.

 MV>> That is not what you said before. You said there has been a zone
 MV>> 7 since 1995 or so. What you mean of course is that it never was
 MV>> part of Fidonet.

 AS> But of course. Mail never was routed there.

Why not? What stopped you guys in R50 from routing mail to and from zone 7?
Technically it should not be a problem. It it was what you all wanted,
nobody from outside R50 could have stopped you. Or maybe it was because not
as many sysops in R50 think this Z7 is as good an idea as you will have us
believe?

 AS>  If mail was routed, I'd left Z2 and joined Z7.

I see. You wanted to be in Z7 but only if netmail form Z2 got routed to
you. Seems to me you wanted to eat the cake and have it too...

 MV>> Did you ever consider that the failure of Z7 is due to the fact
 MV>> that it simply was a bas idea from the start?

 AS> No. I think P4 was a bad idea from the start.

Here I agree. P4 was a bad idea and it has done a lot of damage to FidoNet.

But... P4 and Z7 do not make an exclusive or situation.

 AS> As for Z7, it was and still is a good idea.

I disagree. Both P4 and Z7 were bad ideas.

Actuallly the whole ideas of zones was a bad idea. We never needed them,
there was no technical need for them and the implementation was shaky to
say it mildly. All it ever got us were zone wars.

 AS>>> It seems they placed FidoNet into museum a long time ago, right
 AS>>> at the moment of its triumph to freeze the situation.

 MV>> Triumph? The moment of triumph if you want to call it that,
 MV>> happened over ten years ago when there were 35000 nodes, over
 MV>> 150.000 registered points and maybe half a million users. The
 MV>> users and most of the points have left for greener pastures and
 MV>> only a fraction of the sysops remains.

 AS> This is because they was not satisfied and there was not any
 AS> perspective.

Get your feet back on the ground. The users left because the amateur
network of FidoNet had served its purpose and was overtaken by the
professionals of the InterNet. Amateurs can never compete on their own
territory with professionals who have a million times the manpower and a
million times the resources. It happened to aviation, it happened to radio
and now it has happened to FidoNet.

The users and points left for the greener pastures of the InterNet and
there is nothing anyone could have done about that. And with their BBSes
running idle, most sysops lost their reason for keeping their system
on-line and so they quit as well. He who thinks this process could have
been stopped is a dreamer.

 MV>> Let's face it, Fidonet is almost history. Even in R50. Look at the
 MV>> nodelist statistics...

 AS> It could live in case it could change.

No. Amateurs can not compete with professionals on the same field. Amateurs
can only excell in a niche that is uninteresting for the professionals.
Communication no longer is such a niche.

 AS>>> This explains why it failed.

 MV>> It did not fail. But it is near the end of its useful life.

 AS> It failed. If it didn't it would still develop.

Then by that reasoning Bach, Shakespeare and Einstein were all failures.
There work has stopped and is no longer maintained and developed.

 AS>>>  You can't succeed being in a museum.

 MV>> You can still enjoy the toys and play with them though....

 AS> Silly approach.

Says you. To me it makes sense.

FidoNet was a success, but it has served its purpose and is now near the
end of its useful life. We can still enjoy it, but only if we accept it for
what it is: a museum piece.

A surefire recepi for unhappiness is to keep wanting what you know you can not have.

So accept what you can not change and enjoy what you have.

Michiel

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