Hey Joachim!

 JP> Being a few days in hospital I will take the first post to
 JP> answer.

Hopefully it wasn't anything too serious and I feel honoured that your first
post was directed towards myself.

 JP> As we have seen, backward compatibility is always a problem with
 JP> old software.  But would the solution not be, simply defining a
 JP> new version of the pkt-format?

Offhand I have two issues with this idea, the first being that writing a new
format would be much more work than the rfc-3339 kludge and more than likely
have the same result.  Secondly it doesn't fix the problem embedded in the two
digit year whereas replacing the DateTime stamp does and is probably the
simplest and most effective true fix for a 20 year old bug that continues to
haunt and will continue to haunt.  Using a hospital analogy, you cannot call a
disease cured if you still have the disease when being released from the
hospital.  At best you can say that it is in remission which isn't too far off
from the current problem with two digit years.

Anyhow, as I said in a previous post I am open to dropping the proposal if
something better is presented.  So far I haven't seen it although your
reasonable suggestion probably comes the closest but I am doubtful that it will
have greater success than the rfc-3339 kludge idea.  Having said that it isn't
up to me to decide the merits of any proposal.

 JP> Why not use them for what they are designed: signaling of new
 JP> versions and supports that may or may not become a future to
 JP> fidonet?

That sounds very reasonable.  I for one would appreciate seeing a rough draft
of such a thing but the final decision isn't in my hands.  However if I were a
betting man I'd say your idea might have the greater edge at being successful.

Life is good,
Maurice

... Don't cry for me I have vi.
--- GNU bash, version 5.1.0(1)-release (x86_64-motorshed-linux-gnu)