From: davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane)
Newsgroups: alt.bbs
Subject: Re: Sad to say...
Date: 6 Sep 92 00:57:38 GMT
Organization: Aegis Society, Kyoto Japan

elendil@mintir.new-orleans.la.us (Edward J. Branley) writes:

>davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane) writes:

>> I think the recent threads are the result of people having made the
>> last choice: it's not enough that they do what they've decided they
>> can afford to do, they want to try and convince others that it's the
>> Only Way and try and turn any discussion into a Religious Crusade in
>> favor of that decision. While the result may be somebody else's cup
>> of tea, I don't find it interesting, enjoyable, or useful and will
>> absent myself any further such pouring from the empty into the void.
>>

>David, I've been thinking that we need an alt.religion.bbs group or something
>to attempt to remove some of the attitude that concerns you.  Jeez, we've even
>got a *nix clone flame war going on here!

Who could help but notice :-) I think this ties to your comment
below that the purely local bbs (one line, one program under single
tasking OS, no shell, etc., etc.) is in relative decline. 

>On to your philosophy regarding BBSs:  I agree with it essentially.  One thing
>I've noticed over the years, however, is the slow decline of the local bbs.  In
>our efforts to network our systems, we have offered users so many options
>beyond the local that we're just a local node on the net.

In the beginning, the metaphor was a "host" which people connected
to somewhat like they would go to a party. If they wanted to go to
another party, they connected to another host. Expanding in that
direction, lines were added that allowed more people to
simultaneously attend the party. Expanding in another direction,
hosts began to be connected to each other. 

IMHO, the first kind of expansion doesn't require a change of
metaphor. But if you don't change the metaphor for a host connected
to others, then it becomes "just" a node on the net which somehow
sounds a bit down in the mouth, like maybe the party isn't so
clearly defined as such. 

Coming from a totally different direction is the metaphor of virtual
networks. And this metaphor doesn't really follow from the host-node
metaphor but requires orthogonal change. That is, it's not "more of
the same" but "something completely different."

>I agree with the concept of a free BBS, in all that implies.  If I can't afford
>a feature (like another line), I'm not going to add it.  I'm not even really
>interested in donations to the system.  I normally tell users to make a
>contribution to the local university that is my netnews feed.

IMHO, the "free BBS" (usually meaning somebody else pays :) is part
of what I think of as the Virtual Net. While it may not have dial-up
or hard machine<->machine links, it's connected via face-to-face,
voice-tel, fax, postal-service, private-delivery-service, bank-transfers, 
VISA-transfers, and so on. 

>Maybe your article will spark some discussion beyond whether or not Coherent
>is/is not Unix and whether or not it sucks.

Maybe. But it seems clear enough there are differing intents operating.

On one hand there's discussion about how to upgrade the definition
of "*UNIX" based upon a changed sitauation. On the other there are
the die-hards who are doing their best to maintain old positions of
power at any cost. While they make obstruct things temporarily there
is no way the winds of fate can be stopped: the more solid the
postion, the easier it is to work around. :-)

Thanks for your follow-up, I enjoyed expanding on it,

Dave

--
Dave McLane 
JUNET: davidg@aegis.or.jp (ONLY within Japan: post otherwise)
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087


Newsgroups: alt.bbs