Al wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

Not necessary, either, now that we don't need a geographical
"backbone" to get messages across countries via dial-up. We still need
a centralized list of echoes so people know what's out there.

We still need the meshing that happens at the NAB. Without that meshing you get people in group A all talking between themselves, also people
in group B and C. That meshing doesn't have to happen at the NAB but it has to happen somewhere or we get those puddles of connectivity.

Agreed. I'm all for a documented topology, my issue was with the inherent power and potential for control/abuse of that power by the backbone
operators. Back when cost limitations with dialup made the echomail backbone
a necessity, the potential to cut off a region, squelch a node or an echo
was real.

In Z2 they have the fidoweb were everyone connects together to create a huge mesh. I suppose that works too.. :)

As long as your BBS does decent dupe-checking, I suppose. :)

I've had that discussion on fido echoes and feel like they're missing something or I am. Regardless of the topology of message transit, you still need to know what echoes are out there, and we all need to use
the same echotags.

A lot of folks don't want any kind of centralized backbone and it's not really needed.. but the way FTN works a good solid mesh is needed one
way or another.

What we need is to borrow some of the tech from Napster/Skype. Have master nodes distribute IPs of contributing systems along with the echoes they
carry - let you multi-home echoes to as many places as you want.


... Turn it upside down
--- MultiMail/XT v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)