Hello Terry,

On Wednesday November 20 2019 12:03, you wrote to me:

 MvdV>> I think it is. It stands in the way of progress.

 TR> Your probably right but that is not what Fidonet is about, it is about
 TR> connecting BBS systems together to transport mail and files using a
 TR> documented protocol.

"Connecting BBS systems" is how it began. But the world has changed and so has
Fidonet. Here in this part of the world where - contrary to where Fidonet was
born - local calls were never "free", Fidonet participants moved to
participating as points, rather than users. Users became an almost extinct
species in the second half of the ninetees. I'd say the last Dutch user was
spotted in the wild in 1996. With the users went the BBS. Look at the MO flags
in the nodelist.

 MvdV>> Eh?? Where have you been the last 15 years? Rex is still in
 MvdV>> use, but it is hardly dominant these days. Binkd is the
 MvdV>> dominant file mover today. By far.

 TR> Not in Fidonet, your probably right.

Not probably, I know I am right.

 MvdV>> How do I know? From my own binkd logs. I have some 30 password
 MvdV>> protected links. Two or three still use Irex. Some Argus, some
 MvdV>> Mystic. But the VAST majority of connects is via Binkd.

 TR> Your logs are snapshot, not a fact. Your guessing based on an
 TR> assumption, but your probably right.

That argumentation might hold if I were the only one claiming binkd is the
dominant protocol and Fidonet still operated with the "tree structure". But we
now have the Fidoweb. Many sysops see more than just their uplink and their
downlinks. And they all say Binkd is the dominant protocol.

In case you have not heard about the Fidoweb yet:

http://www.vlist.eu/downloads/fidonews/nads.txt

 TR>>> it works but is now unsupported. If a software works I don't see
 TR>>> a problem.

 MvdV>> The last official Internet Rex version dates from 2001.
 MvdV>> Eighteen Years ago! There was an unofficial update a few years
[..]
 MvdV>> process updates. Rex presents itself as Binkp 1.1 but its 1.1
 MvdV>> implementation is flawed. Sometimes it crashes on incoming. And
 MvdV>> last, but certainly not least: NO IPV6!

 TR> Yet, I never had a problem with Internet Rex and I am getting the
 TR> complete backbone and filegate. If I had a problem then I would find
 TR> another method.

My considered opinion is that Irex is no longer suitable for the needs of
today's Fidonet. You may run into the same problems as I did some day.

 MvdV>> I am not familiar with Wildcat, so I do not know if it can work
 MvdV>> with other mailers. But why hang om to Wildcat?

 TR> If you were a Wildcat sysop you would understand.

Well, I am not. I am not a wildcat sysop, I am not even a BBS sysop, Like most
sysops in this part of the world, I shut down the BBS because the users either
switched to pointing or went to greener pastures.

 TR> Having innovators and new ideas is an important part of Fidonet but it
 TR> doesn't dictate the future and never will. Maybe FSXNET is that
 TR> network or maybe you could start your own.

I never bothered with alternets and I have no intention of starting my own.

 MvdV>> I am not going to write another paper now on why sysops should
 MvdV>> go IPv6. Go read the articles I wrote for Fidonews. Hunt for
 MvdV>> "IPv6" in the Fiodonews archives of the last decade. You will
 MvdV>> find over a dozen articles.

 TR> So in a decade, you haven't got many sysyops to use it. Probably less
 TR> than 10% of Fidonet, that shows me it's not that important yet.

"Many" is a relative notion. Yes my list of IPv6 capable Fidonet nodes lists a
little less than 10% of the nodes in the nodelist. But... while the nodelist is
full of dead wood, my list is accurate and up to date. I regularly check if the
nodes in the list are still on-line. The nodelist... I am afraid 40% dead wood
is an optimistic guestimate.. :(

So expressed in pecentage of active participants, it is a lot more than 10%.
And the figure is rising. While Fdionet as a whole is shrinking the list of
IPv6 nodes is still growing.

Is it important? Maybe not all that important yet. But there is no doubt its
importance will grow. The IPv4 address spave has run out several years ago and
ISPs are starting to no longer offer a public IPv4 address to new users. In the
not too distant future the IPv4 address exhaustion will become a serious
problem for Fidonet sysops that have not added IPv6 capability to their
systems. Soon ISPs will say "sorry mr customer, keeping IPv4 in the air is
becoming too expensive, we are going IPv6 and you no longer get a public IPv4
address".

I am sure you are familair with the expression: "fix the roof when the sun
shines".

Translated: get familiar with IPv6 now, now that it is not yet a matter of life
and death. If you wait until you no longer have a choise, it will be much
harder.


Cheers, Michiel

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