From: cblaise@moose.uvm.edu.UUCP (Chris Blaise)
Subject: Re: BBS Standards Committee Formed
Originator: cblaise@moose.uvm.edu
Organization: University of Vermont -- Division of EMBA Computer Facility
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 16:37:38 GMT

From article <Bt7uBL.7Bz@csn.org>, by bell@teal.csn.org (Bell Scott):
> In article <1992Aug19.000717.162123@zeus.calpoly.edu> cambler@zeus.calpoly.edu (Christopher J. Ambler, Phish) writes:
>>ONE BBSCON, 14 August, 1992
>>
>>Top companies in the BBS and communications industry met this August
> 
> 	The only top company I saw there was Apple.

	Then it's obvious you don't know much about "companies in the BBS and
communications industry".  From memory, it looked like the major supporters
of ONEBBSCon (eSoft Inc.(TBBS), Clark Development (WildCat! or PCBoard?.  Not
sure which), Galacticomm Inc.(MajorBBS)) *DO* fall into this catagory.

> 
>>14th at the ONE BBSCON in Denver, Colorado, in an unprecidented cooperative
> 
> 	Ahem, its 'unprecedented', and it's not.

	Then where else has so many in the BBS industry agreed to this sort
of thing?  We're talking about the *BBS Industry*, not *Communications Industry*
as a whole.

> 
>>effort to define and implement interoperable standards in graphics,
>>messaging, and other aspects of BBS communications. The meeting, called
>>by Searchlight's Frank LaRosa, was attended with enthusiasm by some of
>>the best talent in the communications field. The attendees agreed to form
> 
> 	Hmmm, were the developers of Prodigy there?  How about Night Ridder?
> 	Or even developers of TCP/IP....  Please, do not present this like a
> 	sales pitch if you want it taken seriously.
> 
	How are you getting that this is a sales pitch??
> 
>>a set of protocols and standards to allow communications software and
>>BBSs to interoperate graphically and share common communications formats.
> 
> 	I believe that there are quite a few of these already in existence.
> 	eg: PHIGS, NAPLPS, CALS, etc....  Perhaps you should examine these first

	What's to say that they won't?  I don't see this commitee, and I don't
think they do either, see themselves as being the end-all be all of what
WILL and WILL NOT go into BBSes.  If someone like Alan Mckamee(sp) wants to 
create his own graphics system (NAPLPS), great.  But should HE decide that
it should be a standard?  No.  Should this commitee?  Not neccesarily.  They
should simply be there to decide how and if they should implement such stuff
in their software.


> 
>>Member companies present at the ONE BBSCON include:
> 
> 	Members of what?
> 
>>Searchlight, UUPlus, eSoft, Galacticomm, Magee, TopSoft, Mustang, Datastorm,
>>Dragon's Eye, Martech Software, ProsperNet, Exis Inc., Apple Computer,
>>Unocero, Resnova Software, Advanced Systems Research, Microstar Software Ltd,
>>Pandora Systems, Fracterm/Cardz, Pronto Info Systems, Clark Development, 
>>Late Night Software, and Merlin Systems, Inc.
> 
> 	Hmmm, seems to be heavily weighted for MS-DOS systems.  Make me feel
> 	sorry for the poor guy from Apple.  (Unless he was on the Taligent
> 	project or something...).

	Looking at the program guide for ONE, on most of the Macintosh BBS
demonstrations, the speaker was "To Be announced".  Knowing the people on
the ONE Advisory board commitee, I don't think it was because they didn't 
try to get people there...

> 
> 
> 	Ok, I'm not REALLY flaming this guy.  It just annoys me when a bunch of
> guys who run their own companies (some excepted) get together and try to start
> a new standards comittee.  Especially when I doubt they have consulted with ISO,
> ANSI or anybody else for that matter.  If you are going to claim to set up
> standards for all of us who run and use BBS's, you REALLY should do your home-
> work.  Also you might consider petitioning the above-mentioned EXISTING
> standards organisations, after all, it is their business and they have been
> doing it for QUITE a while.  I'm sorry, but I feel a bit queasy when I think of
> a bunch of nerds (I am one, you know) deciding the future of Telecommunications.
>

	I think you're taking this in the wrong way entirely.  IT's not
a commitee to dictate to you how you should RUN your system, it's a commitee
to decide how to implement stuff into the SOFTWARE.

	Here's an example:  TBBS 2.1, when it was released in 1988, did not
have Zmodem.  People harped and complained about it since Zmodem had been
out for awhile.  Why didn't Phil Becker implement it?  Because there was
no standard.  He said that he had taken two copies of DSZ, both just a couple
of months apart, and they wouldn't work with each other.  Would it have been
a viable business interest for him to implement a potentially buggy Zmodem
into TBBS?

	I see this commitee as one that would hammer out all of the details of
Zmodem (in this example) before the developers would have to risk implementing
it.  There are other things that need to be decided upon as well.  Since
Zmodem came out, I think there are 5-6 newer protocols.  Besides the NAPLPS
graphics interface you mentioned above, there are at leaat 3 others.  
Which of these should BBS and telecommunication software developers integrate
into their software?  This is what I see the commitee standing for.

	If you'd like more information, I would be more than happy to
ask Phil Becker what his stand on it is, and that of several other people
who attended the ONE con.
 
 TTYL
 Chris

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