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Here's a link to the http://uncnsrd.mt-kisco.ny.us/citadel/ Citadel/UX home page. It's been around for a loooong time.

ps what's with the weird [domain] thing being added without my consent?! Irritating.

The real problem with all of these DNS issues (not only .com vs .us, but also the trademark problems, overcrowded namespaces, etc.) is that DNS was never designed to be a locator service. It was designed to attach names to hosts that are easier to memorize than dotted-decimal IP addresses. There have been several attempts at real locator services -- some directory-based, some much simpler (such as RealNames and AOL Keywords) but to date, all of these services have been proprietary, and the last thing the Internet as a whole wants to do is create Yet More Lock-In to a single entity.

The IETF needs to get its butt moving, to deliver a true Locator Service specification to the Internet. I believe there is a working group on the case, but to date not much has come out of it.

For what it's worth, I used a .us name for my system for years (a BBS located at uncnsrd.mt-kisco.ny.us) but eventually jumped into a .org instead (address is in my sig) simply because it's easier for people to remember, and to say -- the more abbreviations and punctuation marks that are in a hostname, the more difficult the name becomes to speak when you're telling someone in-person what your e-mail or web address is.
--

"Who doesn't remember converting all their files to .zip format back in the BBS days?"

AOL/TW and Microsoft will keep each other in check. Internet standards will have to remain open in order for the Big Two to try to cross-lure each other's users.

With open standards, anyone with a server can continue to be a 'netcaster'. To put it in non-Internet terminology: AOL/TW, Microsoft, MCI/WorldCom, etc. are the big newspapers, while sites like Slashdot, UNCENSORED!, and The Onion are the 'zines.

I've been hearing "BBS's are dead" for the past four or five years, and it's just not true. I've run one myself for nearly twelve years now. It's called UNCENSORED! BBS, and it runs on the Citadel software. You can telnet in, you can dial in, or you can use a browser-based front end.

It's a shame that dialup-only BBS's have, for the most part, faded away. Getting a BBS onto the Internet can really be a problem, but as DSL and Cable lower those obstacles, I think there will be more BBS's surfacing.

Please visit my BBS and see what you think. Those of us already in the community really enjoy it.

I've been hearing "BBS's are dead" for the past four or five years, and it's just not true. I've run one myself for nearly twelve years now. It's called UNCENSORED! BBS, and it runs on the Citadel software. You can telnet in, you can dial in, or you can use a browser-based front end.

It's a shame that dialup-only BBS's have, for the most part, faded away. Getting a BBS onto the Internet can really be a problem, but as DSL and Cable lower those obstacles, I think there will be more BBS's surfacing.

Please visit my BBS and see what you think. Those of us already in the community really enjoy it.

Anybody remember Citadel? It's still actively maintained! Check out the Uncensored! BBS. They have a Citadel room-based system, with a Web interface, a Telnet interface, and clients for a number of platforms. Way cool!

Id could avoid this with a license clause, or they could do as Metallica did with "The $5.98 EP" (also known as "The $9.98 CD"). State, both in the fine print and in big bold font on the box, "All versions of Q3 cost $X" and add something akin to the Citadel: "If you paid more, someone is ripping you off." Fugazi, similarly, never charge more than five bucks for tickets to their shows and enforce similar restrictions on the prices of their albums, T-shirts and the like.

Dave is absolutely correct: Mozilla is probably the single most important project for the future of free software. Nearly all technology development for the next decade will be tied to the web in some way, and it's absolutely vital that web technology be kept open.

Hopefully, AOL realizes this. If Microsoft ends up controlling the web, it's only a matter of time before AOL is reduced to insignifance for most purposes. Perhaps they don't realize just how urgent it is, though. AOL needs to make the Netscape Client Engineering Group a very high priority, and get Mozilla into the AOL client as soon as possible. This alone will shift the browser market away from Microsoft in a huge way. Yes, I know about the bundling deal, and I don't think it's worth it.

We do need to focus on more than just the browser, though. While Mozilla is absolutely the most important, we still need to have a diverse array of software available, to give the Linux platform some value, both on the desktop and server side. I personally am working on a replacement for MS Exchange and hopefully will be able to hook up with the developers of some of the better Outlook clones, in order to offer a nice end-to-end integrated solution. Mozilla tie-in? Absolutely. Everything's gotta work with the Web, and I've already got a good web-based front end in place.

Heed Dave's call and spread the word. This is very important.

It looks out of place because it's not finished, not because it's a wxWin app. The pixmaps, for example, are merely a few images quickly grabbed off the 'net just to put there as placeholders. Gnome integration isn't a high priority for me personally -- partially because I'm using KDE desktops right now, and partially because cross-platform is more important to me than having the tightest possible Linux integration is.

Design decisions are the developers' perogative. Anyone who wishes to stand by the sidelines and criticize them will be considered with all the credibility of Andrew Tannenbaum ranting that the Linux kernel is obsolete right out of the door.

If you'd like to join the project and create a Gnome/GTK front end to the system, we'd be thrilled to have you aboard! Please log on to Uncensored and we'll discuss it there.

I did check into the licensing of wxWin. It specifically states that the license is GPL compatible.

Furthermore, the Linux version of wxWin does use GTK+ as its lower-level toolkit. Gnomifying a wxWin application merely involves Gnomifying the wxWin library.

We chose wxWin because it can target both Linux and Windows users -- resulting in a smooth migration for all those users who can take their groupware client with them when they make that big switch.

To address the other issue you mentioned ... all Citadel sources are available through CVS, including the 'Daphne' GUI client. See the website for more info on this.

Anyone interested in an open source groupware project should check out Citadel, which has made quite a lot of progress so far. We started with the existing code to a BBS program and moved forward from there. It already supports email, public folders, instant messaging, web/telnet/client access, and a bunch of other stuff. We all know about the un-scalability of BSD-style mailboxes, and Citadel will be an open source messaging platform with a true message store (the message store is already in place and works quite well).

Development help is currently needed in the areas of address books and calendaring/scheduling. This would be a great project for someone to join rather than try to write a calendaring app from scratch with no infrastructure behind it.

If you don't believe me, check out this one. There is still no place to meet a more "folksy" online crowd.

The pay-for-use BBS's turned into ISP's, and the corporate sites simply went onto the web. Fine. The ones that remain are the true BBS's, the hobbyist ones!

Modern BBS software is quite capable of being accessed simultaneously by dialup callers, telnet users, WWW users, and folks with BBS client software. Naturally, the BBS's which continue to thrive are the ones which are connected to the Internet, allowing a global audience to connect.

BBS's are not dead. The rules of the game have changed, but the World Wide Waste-o-time can never offer the level of interactivity that a BBS can.

I take exception to the phrase "BBS world of the 1980's." BBS's are alive and well, and still offer a more interactive, online-community-oriented experience than the Web does. Long live the BBS! (And visit mine while you're at it)

I take exception to the phrase "BBS world of the 1980's." BBS's are alive and well, and still offer a more interactive, online-community-oriented experience than the Web does. Long live the BBS! (And visit mine while you're at it)

There is a small issue with Cyrix chips regarding the timestamp register. Alan Cox has it patched in his kernels, but that patch hasn't been integrated by Linus yet. It's a very small fix, and it'll be in the final 2.2.0 release.

Art Cancro
UNCENSORED! BBS