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   |                            Closed Group{s}                              |
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   the last days there was an interesting conversation about closed 
   groups in bbsing. i can't describe it to you and i wont do it, cause 
   everyone sees and reads things in their perspective. if you didn't 
   read it, go to fsxnet, general chat echoarea and search for msgs with 
   title "mrc version too old" and "closed othernets". for what i read it 
   wasn't just one subject that was talked about, but a group of things, 
   that also made the conversation hard to follow.
   
   to make clear my self, this is not me, taking the side of one or 
   another. its me, telling you my opinion on the subjects. do you agree? 
   fine... you don't? send me an email explaining why... and i will again 
   disagree with you :p nooo i am kidding. so lets break the stuff and make
   my remarks.
   
   
   "its bad to have closed nets/groups"
   
   i don't know if its bad or not, but it was always a thing in the bbs 
   scene. in some point it did some good for the scene and other times it 
   was just a big trouble. as time showed us, closed groups almost 
   vanished. for sure, some exist, but they don't have much traffic or 
   more traffic than the free ones.
   
   if someone can support a closed group/net or he just likes it in the 
   way it is, its his thing... all others they can just complain about 
   it, feel free to join it perhaps, if they want and be accepted, ignore 
   it etc. it was always like this and it will always be.
   
   
   "software from closed groups, should be uploaded anywhere"
   
   hmmm... not sure about that. you can't tell/force any one to upload a 
   program to all nets. it's also not possible to do so, cause some nets 
   are closed, some bbses don't have, or they don't want to have access 
   to other nets etc. if we see the past, in some cases it was a practice 
   for groups not to release stuff to all nets or even delay the release 
   to some nets etc. we can say with certainty that it was a past 
   behavior that it was acceptable. is it right? wrong? good? bad? hmmm also 
   hard to tell. in a certain point of view its bad, but in another one 
   its good for the particular net. but at the end, no one can do 
   anything about it. the author/release group can do as they fill and no 
   one can do anything about it.
   
   
   up to now, we have two things that was also done in the past and in 
   fact it was common practice. even now, some ansi groups have distros 
   that release their work/packages first. but the real question is... 
   can we make the same things that we did in the past as a scene? did 
   something changed in the time between now and then? for sure it has!
   
   almost 100% of bbs users/sysops now days, are grown ups, that don't 
   have time for "bull shiting" or spend time in searching things and 
   stuff like this. they want the program/art now in the more convenient 
   way, for them, to download. also today users are more familiar with 
   "open source" than back then and also demand for programs/utils to be 
   released as open source. so, for them, a group making releases only 
   for their net, is at least "strange". 
   
   its not that one way or another is "good" or "bad". its just the way 
   it is. others like it, others don't. what will happen in the future, 
   for that group/net, only time will tell, but its their call and they 
   will also have to deal with the consequences of their actions. all 
   others they just have to deal with it also. :)
   
   
   to make things more specific, the argument started for a particular 
   mod/script called MRC. i am not gonna explain what it is, just search 
   for it. the thing is that someone else wrote it and now its being 
   developed by phenom group and promoted through araknet. the mod 
   started as a "free to all, for use and download" and it was 
   distributed by fsxnet which is free to join and well recognized by 
   many bbses, but now its distribution model is more "join araknet 
   boards to get it". also the changes in the mod are vast in compare 
   with the original script.
   
   i can understand both sides and i think both are right and wrong, each 
   one in specific things. as a coder and an outsider my opinion is 
   this... any program started as "free", should remain "free", unless 
   the creator of the program decides otherwise. in this case the 
   original creator hasn't expressed publicly his opinion, on this 
   matter. its weird for someone that he is used to find a program in 
   "free" places, now to have to join a specific bbs to get it. if the 
   software wasn't "free" from the start, we wouldn't have all the fuzz 
   about it.
   
   a "simple" solution would be to keep MRC in its original form and the 
   new, more advanced version to be a fork of it, with different name. 
   this way, "freebies" would get the original software as it was started 
   and expected to be and those who want the more advanced version could 
   follow the closed group etc. its not strange and this happens a lot in 
   software in general. there are forks of projects in many cases. don't 
   you think that this is an acceptable solution for all? the "foul" for 
   me, is that the original creator didn't clear things publicly and that 
   phenom, almost "hijacked" the project and gave it a different 
   "character".
   
   if you asked me... i don't care at all for MRC or any other IRC like 
   feature for bbses... its not compatible with my "dream" for bbses. 
   should someone care about this?... not! its my opinion and i choose not 
   to install it. but those who do support it, they shouldn't be 
   apologetic on doing so. after all adding stuff to bbses is 
   experimenting and also we should have a variety of "dreams" for the 
   bbs scene in general if we want for the scene to follow/evolve. as an 
   example, if someone didn't make bbses to use telnet for connection, 
   perhaps today, we wouldn't have any bbses at all! how many of them use 
   dial-up connections. ;)
   
   the thing with araknet, for me, is that they do a lot of "fuzz" for 
   things that don't deserve it. they seek a lot attention to things that 
   are not so "great" or "ground breaking". for example saying 
   "making an IRC that is not like IRC", "continuing the underground scene".   
   honestly there is no underground scene today! underground doesn't mean 
   cool ansi, facebook posts and a web radio... its all about HPAVC, 
   which now days has vanished. where are the warez? the hacking stuff 
   and so? so making fuzz for "the cool bbses" is irrelevant. you don't 
   see anymore, for example, fuel or blocktronics bragging how awesome 
   they are, do you? they do what they do, offer to the scene and... end. 
    
   
   i don't accuse araknet/phenom, for anything. i really like the whole 
   idea, concept and even being a closed group, i really do. but 
   recognition by the scene, doesn't come from facebook posts or on how 
   many bbses, artists, coders will join the net. what brings recognition 
   is making stuff (mods, scripts, art), helping others, expanding the 
   bbs community, bringing new ideas etc. for sure arak/phenom does both 
   of them, but certain members are more keen to "social networking" than 
   "making stuff", as described above and perhaps this is what brought 
   this tention to the scene, from both sides. fsxnet doesn't use social 
   networks or is affiliate with any groups... does this mean that is not 
   worth some recognition? or that araknet is "better" than fsx? NO! both 
   nets serve the scene in their way and users/sysops recognize it for 
   both of them.
   
   in conclusion, there shouldn't be a "fight" between fsxnet, araknet, 
   pinet, survnet etc. there are all networks/part of the same bbs scene 
   and express different parts of it. you can't abolish one and keep the 
   others, with out harming the scene, as once they created, there are 
   part of the scene. also i saw a "fight" between two networks, that 
   because they have more traffic than the other nets, supposedly are the 
   "representatives" of the scene, which is diminishing for other 
   networks. as also the past has shown us... networks are coming in the 
   foreground and also vanishing into oblivion, no one has the right to 
   think his network is better that other. this is a personal choice 
   for each and one of us, who use and like bbsing. 
   
   so in a phrase... 
   
                              
                      
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   TeLNeT : andr01d.zapto.org:9999 [UTC 11:00 - 20:00]          8 888888##88888
   SySoP  : xqtr                   eMAiL: xqtr@gmx.com          8 8888.####.888
   DoNaTe : https://paypal.me/xqtr                              8 8888##88##888
