• Re: Crossroads and Fred Clark

    From Spladam@3:633/280.2 to All on Fri Jan 6 16:09:23 2023
    On Sunday, August 16, 1998 at 2:00:00 AM UTC-5, John L. Crane wrote:
    On Thu, 13 Aug 1998 12:39:14 GMT, abac...@prontomail.com (Abaciscus)
    wrote:
    software market I can think of. The free-lunchers, ingrates and
    pirates make BBS software programming a field that few people in their >right mind should enter, especially if they want to make money.
    I'm struck with a few thoughts on this matter...
    First, I've always considerd this a hobby, not a business. I've never expected to make a fortune off BBSing. At best I expected not to go
    broke from it.=20
    From that viewpoint who can spend a fortune on the latest wizz bang
    feature they might not even want. I've seen some laughable prices on
    some addons.
    Secondly BBSing is supported by a grass roots bunch of hacks
    (dscription offered in the good sence). When a friend and I wanted a
    TRIBBS like menu system we wrote one and uploaded it to SaltAir.=20
    People who care about the medum giving back, perhaps the way it should
    be..
    I think your right that there isn't a lot of money to be made in
    BBSing, there never was. Even then, I'd love to be able to fiind and redgesture a couple of programs.
    I know this is ancient and nobody will likely ever see this, but I'd like t=
    o say, from a quarter century in the future, after getting caught using a p= irated copy of PCboard as a 15yo sysop, I wrote a letter to Fred Clark apol= ogizing and explaining my situation, in hopes that I would not get "kicked = out of the community" cuz I was young and stupid, and two weeks later I rec= eived a package with really generously licensed copy of PCboard, free of ch= arge, and a letter I wish I still had. Even though it was the "fancy" solut= ion, and I had used Wildcat! for years, and I always thought of Clark Devel= opment as the rich corporate assholes, well, despite that, I learned Fred C= lark was actually a good dude.

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