Posted by Alex on 02/05/06 03:50

Hey Guys --

First let me say I'm not dissing Synchronet or BBSes in general, on the
contrary my want to do this is to bring to life on the WWW what BBSes
have enjoyed for years. I'm looking at the individual's hobbiest
website like BBSes once were, and I think having a way to share
information between websites now is just as important as sharing
between BBSes.

My thought is not to reuse the Fidonet or BBS protocols, but to rewrite
a series of programs to mimick the Fidonet-type communications between
BBSes but for websites instead. It'd be more then messages though,
having files, notices/news, blogs, podcasts, etc. It would add
features of the WWW that were not around even a few years ago. I think
Fidonet worked so well that carrying over the principles and theories
of Fidonet yet rewriting it to store data in a more portable way --
like using XML or similar. It wouldn't be keeping data in the same
format used by BBSes for years then writing ports to use this data on a
website, quite the opposite.

Just a thought... Like I said before I'm not a hardcore programmer,
and I've not touched C++ in many years, but this might be a fun project
to get kicked off.

Would anyone use it? Not sure - but I'm sure Tom Jennings didn't know
Fidonet would takeoff either. Granted Fidonet was for a different era
where it was meant to give folks a way to communicate across grand
distances with more ease, but it ended up giving BBSes an angle they
didn't have before. Not unlike Synchronet BBSes joining Dovenet now to
get great content outta the box.

I already have a few friends who want to help with this, and if nothing
else it'll give me a chance to start learning more programming skills.
And heck who knows ---

Sam

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