Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!hubcap!gatech!bloom-beacon!apple!bionet!agate!ucbvax!WSL.DEC.COM!kent
From: kent@WSL.DEC.COM
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: A Fidonet-Based Revolution
Message-ID: <8811112154.AA02703@gnomee.pa.dec.com>
Date: 11 Nov 88 21:54:11 GMT
References: <8811111323.aa17185@note.nsf.gov>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 22

Wait a second. Is FidoNet *really* what we want to build a revolution
on? Yah, it's neat, and it's simple, and it might even be clean. But do
we want to be stuck with it and whatever limiting assumptions it has
for the next 10 years?

Look at the uucp world. It started out as a quick hack for distributing
software, then grew into mail distribution, then news was born, then
came the anarchy we all know and hate. We're stuck now, for better or
worse, with a stupid naming scheme, explicit routing, and a very
limited (and limiting) functionality.

Exchanging mail is great. But there's a lot more that I want to be able
to do -- and expect to be able to do from my home communication node in
the next 10 years. 

I worry about standardizing yesterday's solutions. Yes, it's better
than standardizing tomorrow's (bad) ideas (cf the ISO protocols),
especially before they're built. I believe in building something that
works and then promulgating it. But let's promulgate something that
allows us to expand.

chris