From: torben@titan.ucc.umass.edu (Random Tox)
Subject: Re: BBS wars - a plea 
Summary: Telegard's Legit, so the WWIV kids can shut up! Whee!
Organization: The Durex Blender Corporation
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 07:17:31 GMT

In article <1992Dec17.221730.1866@lub001.lamar.edu> lairdpg@lub001.lamar.edu writes:
>In article <Bz3qKF.EH7@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, hucke@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Matt Hucke) writes:
>> In article <1992Dec11.023518.24465@sol.UVic.CA> ndenux@engr.UVic.CA writes:
>>
>
>> Telegard's a hack of WWIV.  Anyone who uses it is indirectly supporting theft
>> of code.  Even if Telegard is a good program, it should be avoided for 
>> ethical reasons.

	Fool. Telegard was a hack of WWIV about 4 years ago. Version 2.5
was so different that it can't count as a hack, although it devinately
evolved from one, and in the source code of older versions 1.9, or so, you
can see remnants and traces of WWIV-type code.
	Telegard 2.7 is perfectly legitimate, coding from the ground up in
C by Martin Pollard, and runs smooth and fast. Remember, Marty was not the
one who originally "hacked" WWIV anyway. Way back when, when Eric Oman
hacked away at a very crappy version of WWIV, he basically did some
limited renaming, and then did some upgrading (sorely needed) Telegard
began to evolve, and Martin Pollard joined in, and did some work on it and
eventually took the project over when Oman tired of it.
	Telegard is *FREE* software. In the past and Now. Marty has quit
working on it because he was getting literally nothing from his work. No
support, even from the dedicated sysops who run it. Telegard is a very
attractive and powerful BBS package that blows away systems like Wildcat!
i haven't seen the latest release of Wildcat!, but its previous boasts of
security and configurability and power are pathetic wheezings next to
telegard, which is very secure, especially in the new 2.7.

>I even understand that there will be no future releases of Telegard from
>Martin Pollard?  Also, there are several sources you can obtain the source code
>for Telegard 2.5 and greater.  There is reportedly (hearsay cause I haven't
>actually saw it) that a later version contains a trojan and some local sysop
>who got greedy to get ahead of the other Telegard Sysops went and downloaded it
>from Rust and Eddies BBS (somewhere in Florida) and it did the wild thing.. on
>his drive.

	Supposedly. Again, hearsay. Renegade BBS evolved from (and is
still a blatant hack/ripoff of) Telegard 2.5k.

>For a long time Telegard and TAGBBS ( a ligit - produced code and also a later
>re-write of WWIV) went at it head and toes.  Seemed that most the kiddies in
>town ran Telegard as opposed to TAG or commercial software for some reason.
>I guess that might relate to "Hacker Wars".  Ask Marty Pollard about the user
>who uploaded a "Logoff.Bat" file with a little documented feature of DSZ to
>his BBS directory and nearly did the wild thing on him!  Since... That feature
>was fixed by using the DSZ 'Restrict' command, restricting uploaded files to
>the upload directory and not the path sent by the remote hook-up.

	Also, that feature was fixed by the release of Telegard 2.7 which
now allows the sysop to turn off the system batch files. This is in fact
the default. You'd have to be silly these days to get caught by that anyway.

>When security counts, Telegard doesn't!  Telegard anyone?  His next software,
>which is scheduled to be Marty-Gard, well I never saw it.

	Read the above. Telegard has good security, and now has even
better security.

	MartyGard was the project name for Telegard 2.7. Telegard 2.7 is
coded ground up in C, and is beautiful. It will no longer be supported,
but an upgrade package is coming out soonish that will do a final bugfix
on tg 2.7 and add a feature or two, and that'll be it.

	Telegard 2.7 is out, and FTP-able from SIMTEL-20. 

>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>My opinions only!          lairdpg@lub001.lamar.edu

	I hope so... otherwise Telegard will get an even worse name. It
has been long stuck with the label of "k-RaddDd!! PiRAyTE BBss1!!z!!1!!"
(sort of) because of what happened 5 years ago. 5 years kid. Even WWIV
improved in 5 years... really. And WWIV is still *ugly*!