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Re: "Stripping Wars!" [Re: SPF is not usable as legal measure against spammers.]

2004-07-15 23:31:20

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matt Burleigh" <matt(_dot_)burleigh(_at_)eiisolutions(_dot_)net>
To: <spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com>
Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2004 10:12 PM
Subject: Re: "Stripping Wars!" [Re: [spf-discuss] SPF is not usable as legal
measure against spammers.]


Ahhh, RBBS - One of the original "Social Networking" "GroupWare" software
which allows you to create "sub-sections" per group of users catering to
similar interest <g>

Actually, I think it was called "RBBS-PC" and the sub-sections, or
message boards, were actually called "Conferences" or was that
PCBoard... Shoot, I think I ran them all including one called World War
Four and Wildcat! I remember FidoNet getting so big that we used to pull
the feeds off a 19.2k satellite dish. Then of course came the "USENET"
feeds... The "Internet" became, I think, every BBS SysOp's dream.
Unlimited callers, I mean connections, no more banks of modems and
dozens of phone lines...  God, that stuff was fun!

I developed the first Offline Mail System for the FidoNet called Opus
Xpress.  I wrote it in 2 weeks for the Opus BBS.  :-)

At my real job, I had help co-authored a mail reader called "Emailator" for
Westinghouse X.400 mail network modelled after the first Offline Mail Reader
called TAPCIS witten for CompuServe. It was a "Text Dump" capturing system.

I got the modem bug and before I knew about Opus, I started to call a local
PCBOARD BBS since it catered to developers.

I chatted with the BBS sysop and told him about Emailator and suggested that
something like this would be great for PCBOARD.  "It will save alot of
time!"   After all at that, the Bells charged you by the minute even for
local calls!

He said "Don't bother. One is coming out in a week or so called QMail Delux
using something called the QWK format by a fella called Sparky. I have one
ordered!"

I said "Great!" and never thought about it again until it was finally
released and saw it in action.

It lit 3 bulbs for me!

1) BBS Door Operations for 3rd party software hooks into the BBS file
system.
2) Compresssion with a QWK format modeled after PCBOARD mail format.
3) The QMAIL/Delux Mail Reader sucked!

QMail was two parts:  A BBS QWK Mail Door and the end-user QWK Mail Reader.
The user connected, hit D to download mail into a QWK packet. Disconnected
and used the Qmail Reader to read/write mail.  He uploaded the QWK reply
packet and the QMail Mail Door imported the new mail into the BBS mail
database.

But I had no idea that this was going to change my life until I met someone
using an Opus BBS which was one of the growing Fidonet-ready BBS software
linked up in a world-wide mail/file network using Fidonet P2P technology.

In Pittsburgh, there was 2 PCBOARDs and over 100 Opus systems. At a user
group party, I talked about this QWK for PCBoard, and this Opus guy I met
asked  if I can write one for Opus.  He would give me everything I needed,
including a PC with modems, etc.

I didn't want to step on Sparky's toes so I figured doing a OffLine Mail
System for Opus shouldn't be an issue. After all, PCBoard was not a BBS
networking system and the mail formats were completely difference.

In two weeks, I finished and and released it to various local Opus BBS field
testers.   It followed the FidoNet mail standard and it I wrapped it with
header separators.  I called the new format OPX (OPus Xpress).

Mind you, I still had a real engineering job and moonlighting was company
taboo, but I had that "fire in the belly" in something brand new in the PC
market other than boring Nuclear Power Plant and Robotics! <g>

I released OPX as a new shareware concept called ShareWay with a cost of
$10.00. Each person who recommended others got a $1 kick back.

It only took a few days when my wife called me at work and said:

        "Someone from Oregon sent you $10 with a small note."

I said, "Oh, what does the note say?"

        "Great program! Here is a suggestion: Raise the price and get
         rid of the Amway Crap!  You are going to be a millionaire!"

The bucks started to come steady daily.  Within 1 week, I got an email
saying "Sparky saw your program and blessed it as an original product with
excellent new ideas."

Soon I saw some called in my OPUS bbs and signed up with the name Sparky
Herring (the father of QWK); "Oh my god! What does he want?"

I broke in to chat and he ask to speak via phone.  We talked and we
basically made a gentlemen agreement to not step into each other's market.
He proposed:

         "I will stay in the PCBOARD market only and not
          introduce QWK for OPUS, if you stay away from
          the PCBOARD market with your OPX format."

At that time,  I figured he was NUTS and I was getting the better end of the
deal.

1) There was 100 OPus systems and only 2 PCBOARD. This was the general
pattern across the country.  More money for me!

2) PCBOARD was commercial and Opus was Freeware. So there were obviously
going to more Opus systems in the world. Right?

3) I was now familar with PCBOARD when my Boss asked to install a BBS for
Westinghouse Corporate network over X.25.  I selected commercial over free.
PCBOARD was RS232/Modem based and needed to be tweaked for pure RS232
communications. So I worked with SaltAir (the vendors) to make that happen.
But more importantly, the mail format was weak and not comparable to
Fidonet.

So I agreed think I had the upper hand.

Opus was the second of the original Fidonet BBS called Fido, then a Opus
cloned called Maximus was very popular and about a dozen other Fidonet-Ready
BBSes were available, especially QuickBBS and RemoteAcess.

I designed a version for each of the Fidonet-Ready BBS systems about 10 at
the time.  I raised the price to $25.00, renamed Opus Xpress to "Silver
Xpress" based on the old movie with Richard Prior and Gene Wilder "Silver
Bullet?"  Within a year or so I was able to quit my job and go full time
with this new product! :-)

Then one day I got a call from a big San Francisco user group using RBBS.
They wanted Silver Xpress for RBBS.  I said, "No problem. Just point me to
the RBBS technical specifications."

They told me RBBS is open source and guided me to where to get it all.

To my surprise and I saw something really interesting and I called them up:

        "Hey, RBBS is a clone of PCBOARD - its the same kind of system with
the
         same mail format!"

I didn't tell them that it might break a gentleman agreement I had with
sparky.  If I wrote one for RBBS, I can use the same model for PCBOARD.

They told me:

        "You got it backwards.  PCBOARD is a CLONE of RBBS!""

This shocked me when I learned the history.  They urged me to write one for
RBBS to that they can support their 45,000+ user base and they will help
sell Silver Xpress Mail Client to the users in bulk!

I was sold!  I wrote Silver Xpress/RBBS.   Now I started to advertise,
attend trade shows and the business was booming. I was told that I was more
successful then Jim Button for 1st year sales of a shareware product. The
Hong Kong American Embassy researching the "Software Piracy" problem
informed my that Silver Xpress was the 3rd most pirated problem in Hong Kong
behind PKZIP and QEDIT.  The military was using the system at remote
military sites and ocean.  It was big!

I was getting ask by almost all the BBS people:  WWIV,  SearchLight,
RoboBoard/FX and many others! I just couldn't keep up with it! <g>   QWK was
very popular too by this point as a standard, and Silver Xpress supported
both now. Thats when I really killed Sparky and the rest. <g>

Now I got calls from Wildcat! Sysops who were using a different mail format
and when Fidonet was now becoming important for Wildcat! and PCBOARD, the
sysops wanted a Offline Mail Format that worked great witih it.  QWK did not
support the Fidonet Addressing scheme.

In short,  by 1989/90, I was covering atleast 20+ BBS systems and I was
hitting the commercial systems by time!   But what started as the 3rd system
introduced in 83, there were alteast 1000 off line mail systems, I saw the
end was coming. It was time for new stuff.

Another popular format called Blue Wave was a Silver Xpress clone started by
a OPX beta tester because I was too overwhelm in support and was slow to
respond to various specific models.  The BW forrmat became very popular in
Maximus (Canadian Market was big).

To improve the business, I cut down support from 20+ systems to the top 3-5
multi-million dollar commercial systems only:

-    PCBoard
-    RA (Remote Acess) and her clones
-    Maximum (free, but was popular on OS/2 with IBM support).
-    RBBS (Free, but used by commerical systems)
-    Wildcat! (had no clones)

MajorBBS from Galacticomm (poor founder hung himself) and TBBS from eSoft
(CEO was a-hole) were around but they had proprierty formats and made it
difficult to support.  MajorBBS was your first major "games network!"

By 1995/96, the real top dogs was Wildcat! and PCboard from a commercial
standpoint.  They all had Internet Slip/UUICO Gateways components now,
including Novell/MHS and the OPX format handled all the formats, including
the growing RFC 822 format.

To help PCBOARD become more Fidonet friendly, I helped Dave Clark at SaltAir
with a new PCBOARD mail format more compatible for Fidonet operations.  I
helped them design the requirements for the PCBOARD Fidonet Frontend as
well.

Not to be undone, Jim Harrer, CEO at Mustang wanted a Fidonet system too for
his software. We met at ONE BBSCON (before it was renamed to ONE ISPCON) run
be that idiot eSOFT CEO Phil Becker and Jack Richard at Boardwatch Magazine.
I wrote Platinum Xpress exclusively for Wildcat!/DOS which was a powerful
integrated Fidonet FrontEnd for Wildcat! builtin with Mail/file processor!
Sales skyrocketed!  Our relationship became more exclusive.

With people buyng small dishes for PC Satellite feeding news, fido echos and
files, lost cost PPP connectiions, Fidonet was now being used more over the
internet using FTP HUBs ($5 to $30 per month).

I original wrote "iFTP" Intelligent IFTP with put scripting power for
hubbing, but to my surprise it took in other commercial markets, like
automated Kiosh machine updating.

Programs like TransX and others were moving data over email and the FTSC
(Fidonet Technical Standard Conmittee) stated fighting with Fidonet Frontend
developers over how to best integrate the internet with the powerful P2P
Fidonet Protocol with its two minimul requirements:

    - FTSC1 protocol (old xmodem packet exchange)
    - 1 Hour Zone Mail Hour (ZMH) with no user connections (mailers only).

The things we are fighting about NOW is what Fidonet always had; strong
authentication. Membership,  Host Control over subhost MTAs.  In fact, when
you installed a Fidonet Mailer, you applied for membership into the nodelist
(akin to DNS) with your local Network Host Coordinator (akin to ISP) and he
tested the mailer setup for FTSC1 compatibility at ZMH.

New Fidonet/Internet ready frontend came but the FTSC would not allow it to
be a standard because you MUST FTSC1 for old farts who didn't want to
change.  So many new developers abandoned Fidonet, didn't bother.   The top
Fidonet mailers like PX, FrontDoor, InterMail, Binkley and others ruled the
day.

Mustang was also writing a 32 bit Windows version "putting it all together"
designed by a brilliant young engineer, Greg Hewgill, the author SLMR "The
Silly Little Mail Reader"  pronounced "sly-mer."  I've seen Greg in around
here (I saw you Greg in the MARID Jabber logs!)

To stay on par with thier 32 bit effort, I wrote a Platinum Xpress/Windows
version for the new Wildcat! Internet Net Server (WINSERVER) for WIndows and
because their #1 3rd party developer and reseller of Wildcat!

In 1998, Harrer wanted out to get into the CRM market. I saw a vision in
WINSERVER with its integrated dialup, internet, multi-access system.  It was
ahead of time even as the internet/web was growing like wild weed!  It was
going thru a transition and simply need to make it fit better and also
better support the hurting customers.  I always felt the market well come
back.  So I offered to buy the Wildcat! product line.  I needed a strong BBS
to complete the line of products I had that was way ahead of its time!

A deal was struck and the rest is history. <g>  Greg helped move the
computer network support systemfrom West to East Coast and he told me over
dinner that SLMR was written Silver Xpress in mind!  I was pretty tickled by
that because SLMR was one of those "Free Readers" that work great, and help
kill my sales!  If you had a QWK door, you offered the free SMLR to your
users. :-)

In a nut shell,  I've pretty much been part involved in all this since the
early 80s,  with nearly every aspect in the PC based online mail and file
business with experiences in nearly every piece of the total system; from
end users software, mail door software, fidonet frontend,  mail and file
gateways,  UUCP/SLIP,  to Online BBS hosting software for dialup and all the
internet services.

My prediction was correct.  It was all bound to come back.  The Internet
made "strangers" of the local community of people.  Now people want Login
systems again, locally or remotely.  "Social Networks" again popular and
they want multple ways to get their mail and files.   :-)

---
Hector Santos
WINSERVER "Wildcat! Interactive Net Server"
http://www.santronics.com





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