Re: BBS support

[dan%cs.wisc.edu%ucsd.edu@Sdsc.BITnet]

   I am very much in favor of services to the general user community,
and have said many times that I hope to offer a much more full-featured
mailbox when the NOS code is complete.

   That said, I must say that I don't like the way BBS systems operate.
I don't really like the BBS paradigm very much, and file transfer over
local, low speed packet connections is like fur on a fish.  BBS mail
"standards" are in chaos, and different flavors of boards format their
headers differently.  There are about a zillion standards for addressing.
Etc.

   We in the TCP/IP community should play to our strengths when offering
services to the AX.25 user base.  We should use standardized mail formats
such as RFC822, and take advantage of our ability to provide personalized
mailboxes and mailing list distribution.  We should provide name and
directory services using Internet standard facilities.  In short, we
should do it better, not just try to clone a creaky, ad hoc model.
If we do that, then we really haven't achieved anything, have we?  Sort
of like putting bias ply tires on a Maserati.

   (All this from someone who just cloned a creaky, ad hoc protocol :-))

   -- Dan