Let's start with a little history. Back in the
year 1991, I first met the program ProBoard. It was a local friend of mine who had a
little private BBS system. From the first time I saw it, I fell in love with it...
Especially the PEX system was great. So, in my spare time I began writing PEXes. Until
now, I've written almost 35 PEXes, and about twelve are released to the public under the
Virtual Soft Productions label.
Are dial-in BBS'es dead?
Yes, I do think so. Take this example, in the
summer of 1997 there were over 5 BBS'es in my phone area. Now there's only 1 (one!) left,
it's the local Fidonet node, it gets about 5 BBS-callers a week. The number of nodes in
the Belgian nodelist has significanty changed the last year. Last week, I
was browsing through the list, and I found out that over 50% of the BBS'es in my country's
captital (Brussels) have disappeared. Some of them were large BBS'es with over 3 lines and
100 Fidonet points. Newer BBS'es are having it very hard to find new callers, most the
modem-users are on the Internet where everyting is so much better - they say - ...
The only thing that will survive (al least for
some time!) are Fidonet nodes. But, the time a BBS sits behind the mailer is over too.
Just the mail-only (MO) "BBS'es" will survive. At least for now. Because on
the Internet, there is also something called Usenet.
Will the Internet save Proboard / revive
ProBoard?
Probably not... I don't think BBS'es will have
a future on the Internet. Anyone how needs to put files online, will do it with an FTP
server, and eventually with an HTML page to guide it. The advantages of doing it with an
Internet browser are so big. You can download multiple files at the same time without
problems. It's easier to maintain for the "sysop" or the administrator.
And, what will be the difference between a
fully Internet compatible ProBoard installation and a simple Internet server installation?
None, except for the price, you can get the latter for about nothing. Just use War-FTP and
Xitami, they are both freeware.
Of course, you won't have the advantage of the
PEXes then, but you have Java as a full-blown programming language, it is available on
nearly every platform. And, the are scripting language too.
And, FTP and HTTP servers are know to be very
stable, since they are not new anymore. We don't know how stable ProBoard 3.0 will be...?
About the meeting last night
What can I say... Philippe was there, but he
said not much about the future of ProBoard except for a few thing to remember :
He will not make the 2.16 source available.
As far as his concern ProBoard 2.16 was off-topic, last night.
There will probably no
"open-source" project for ProBoard. And I think that's about the only way out
for ProBoard. One or more persions who compile and distribute the "official"
release, while lots of people work on updates/new features.
There was a person who called himself "cricetus"
and is willing to pay $ 1000 for the ProBoard sources. Philippe is considering his offer.
It seems ProBoard 3.0 for Windows 95/98/NT is
working well. Telnet is done for 99% only the PEX source code part needs to be cut and
paste into the source. But he also said that he won't give PEX technology code free...
Tom Torfs (tomtorfs@village.uunet.be) offered his
services to make the PBUTIL.EXE compatible with Win32 and OS/2 (both console
versions).
There was some moron called "C_Spiess" (jenny@owns.IRAQ-online.org)
who entered the channel. Of course it wasn't the real Constantin Spiess... No it was a
local hero who will save ProBoard on his own way... Philippe made him co-operator of the
channel, and next thing we say was chaotic :) All the other op's were kicked off the
channel, and there was a bit panic out there... :)
The complete text is available for download.
Last word
I'm not feeling very well today.... It seems
like I've been stolen. They stole my hobby - making PEXes - for sysops with a dead BBS
program!
I personally thought this meeting was going to
be inportant, but it was a big disappointment! Philippe hasn't really thought about what
future he would like ProBoard to give. Let's hope it won't take another year... :)
In the hope of a better future for ProBoard -
The Choice of REAL Professionnals!
Olivier Debonne
August 8, 1998 - 10:00am CET
Last Update : August 8, 1998 - 3:00pm CET
Comments are always welcome on virtual.soft@debonne.eu. |
