On 7/3/2019 11:56 AM, Randy Bush wrote:> [ just hitting reply to be in
thread, not pointing at you, sob ]
tom jennings (still a friend), the creator of fidonet[0],
Amazingly, Randy, I still have many die-hards using Fidonet frontends,
mail and file gateways, virtualized over TCP. My Platinum Xpress (PX)
and Wildcat! BBS are among the "Last of the Mohicans" with Fidonet
capabilities. http://www.santronics.com/products/pxpress
was repeatedly
pressured to make rules. he eventually gave in and made two rules. of
course, they immediately became expanded by the embellishers, resulting
in https://www.fidonet.org/policy4.txt, from which i quote
The FidoNet judicial philosophy can be summed up in two rules:
1) Thou shalt not excessively annoy others.
2) Thou shalt not be too easily annoyed.
Yes, as you remember, there was a weapon -- membership into the
Fidonet nodelist. Excommunications was possible. There is also the
technical compliance requirement. FTS-1 was a basic requirement for
all the software during Zone Mail Hour. I recall how this became an
early contention and conflict with the FTSC and the then-modern
internet developers who wanted to use the advanced internet-ready
WAZOO protocol and not waste time with a dated protocol that did not
work well under the packet switching network. A sysop could be
excommunicated for not using compliant software.
mike asked solid and critical questions. when not answered, he became a
bit more strident. as one to whisper twice and then nuke from orbit, i
find it hard to fault him. when the response is an attack on his tone,
with no response to his question(s), and coming from two members of the
iesg, i am alarmed and deeply saddened by an abuse (due to imbalance) of
power in what is easily construed as an attempt to silence.
Unfortunately, this remains to be and don't see is changing. The
basic idea among the many IETF cogs is to allow "noise" (thread
activity levels) decide what is relevant or when a "cog" will join the
discussion. There is also the "messenger" problem. Depending on who
delivers it, it can activate or kill mail I/O. This remains to be a
behavior with a number of well-respected, long time IETF "do-all" cogs
who will ignore smaller participant postings until someone deemed more
important replies, and to a large extent, almost always to "shut" it
down. There is also now the big elephant in the room, the "who you
work for" guy - big vs small. If you are from the bigger firm,
increasingly with stronger, sponsorship ties to the IETF, in my
technical opinion, this has hurts what I long called "Cooperative
Competition" where we design protocols common to all implementations
at all scales and doesn't include technology that hurt or raise the
barriers of entry for the smaller scales and implementations. Today,
cooperative competition is harder to achieve. The IETF still helps
keep the spirit, but in the end, the little guy is losing within the
IETF. I understand it is a battle. People will suggest the IETF
monies spent needs to be allocated in a way that gets thing done. I
read that a number of times stated when it comes to creating WG.
Unfortunately, in my view, even if you are incline to follow a market
leader, the quality of proposals are down and while the "Trickle Down"
theories are nice, the realities are they don't quite work when the
implementation cost are now much higher to even explore new ideas and
methods used by the bigger firms.
this is severely damaging the ietf and the internet. please stop. just
stop.
In my opinion, the IETF does not benefit by the, for lack of a better
term, "IETF Do-all" folks. They are certainly highly experienced,
provide input, help complete, push, and to a growing extent help
"rammed down" lower quality documents as "proposed standards," but in
my opinion, it comes with no major long term gain or benefits to the
entire IETF community as a whole -- from hobbyist, small, mid to
enterprises. Newer participants quickly learn "who's who" and learn
to pick their battles often leaving out concerns that may appear like
you are rocking the boat. Like now.
Today, many in the IETF are less tolerant are are quick to promote or
seed the ideas of moderation and controls to shut down any form of
contention or boat rocking.
0 - "FidoNet: technology, tools, and history," Communications of the ACM
Volume 36 Issue 8, August 1993.
https://archive.psg.com/930000.fidonet-acm.pdf
Never knew this document existed. :)
--
HLS
