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From: james@reality1.UUCP (james)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: FidoNET is Usenet without the hassle?  :-)
Message-ID: <47@reality1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-Oct-86 03:18:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: reality1.47
Posted: Wed Oct 22 03:18:17 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Oct-86 00:03:34 EDT
References: <1945@well.UUCP> <1204@hoptoad.uucp>
Organization: Reality Computer Systems, Austin TX
Lines: 31
Summary: EchoMail not hassle free at all

In article <1204@hoptoad.uucp>, gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
> From FidoNET Newsletter, Volume 3, # 39:
> >      He
> >      should be remembered by the networking historians for  developing
> >      a  utility  that gives you just about everything that UseNet does
> >      without half the hassle.
> 
> I think this is particularly ironic considering it appeared immediately
> after a complex two-page description of how to add a newsgroup!

What makes this funnier is that EchoMail is not very hassle free at all.  By
far the biggest problem with usenet is finding someone willing to feed news.
I queried 30 people and got two willing to feed news to me.  Once you've done
that the software & setup is fairly easy if time consuming and not especially
well documented (although the price is certainly right!).  EchoMail can be
painful in the extreme.  An Echomail "area" requires that the systems involved
be precisely set up to avoid infinite message propogation: EchoMail doesn't
tag each message with a Message-id as usenet does!  Another problem is that
FidoNet must be in either mail transfer mode or in human caller mode, and 
one can call when it's in the other mode.  I keep thinking that the next
version of Fido will have a calling Fido log in as a user and then cause the
called Fido to switch to network mode, but not yet.  Many busy Fidos are in
network mode most of the night, preventing humans from using them during cheap
LD hours.

But then again, Fido and in particular EchoMail are brand new even by unix
standards.  And no one gets paid to sit around and figure out message
transmission methods for Fido...  EchoMail does work, but it is not as advanced
or effective as most Fido users seem to think.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen    ...!ut-ngp!utastro!osi3b2!james    "Live Free or Die"