Subj : Re: Synchronet vs. Mystic
To   : Jas Hud
From : Richard Falken
Date : Wed May 11 2022 03:29 pm

 Re: Re: Synchronet vs. Mystic
 By: Jas Hud to Richard Falken on Tue May 10 2022 07:31 am

> if you're runing *nix you need to compile it.
>
> i think these guys here were talking about actually modifying the source.
> they're saying that synchronet is so configurable that it's not necessary.
> people still edit the source and have their own little versions.
>
> probably the one thing people weren't happy about was the file areas and how
> they handled LFN and listings.  there were a few guys playing around with th
> and maybe some of their ideas or modifications made into the latest release.
>
> there are some things that are hard coded that i can see people wanting to
> change. for example some of the color settings are in attr.cfg.  that's just
> little text file that handles SOME of the colors:
> i think it's obvious to most people that these values belong in the text.dat
> if i was enthusiastic enough about bbsing and we had some users, i'd probabl
> make this change for my own system.   BUT..... if there was another release
> i'd just be screwed and have to work around their next changes.
> it would be better to get them to accept the changes and then submit it.
>

The beauty of open source is that you don't need upstream to cooperate. It is
so, so much better if they cooperate, but for most hobby programs, you can just
put your fork on some sort of vercion control system that allows merging
changes from upstream in an automated way. Not ideal, but serviceable for hobby
projects.

I have posted this elsewhere, but my opinion is that using open source programs
is the natural path for BBSing, since BBSing is a hobby, and hobbyism is all
about tweaking and looking under the hood of things. Even if you don't make
many changes, it is cool to try to figure out how things work.

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