response 1 of 112:

Oct 11 13:43 UTC 2004

Jan, thanks for a very clear and helpful explanation of what to expect from
the next grex.   I think Marcus told me recently that he had compiled Picospan
for Nextgrex, but maybe he meant that he was still working on it. Anyway, the
new features of Fronttalk sound really helpful.  I have often wanted to mark
some item 'new' without having to reread the parts of I that I already went
through (such as mcnally's extensive Alaska postings, which I wanted to read
at leisure the next day). Will Fronttalk let me mark some item as 'new'
without it showing up when I do 'b n' or should I use postpone for that?

How does lynx deal with sites that have no secure certificate?  Lynx 2.8.5
complains when I hit a site for which I do not have the certificate, but what
must I do to stop it from complaining?  I hope Nextgrex will have 2.8.5.

If I type lynx grex - does this automatically bring up the https version?

response 3 of 112:

Oct 11 18:53 UTC 2004

Using Picospan on NextGrex would be like renting a phone from AT&T to
use on your SBC landline.  You can't make any changes to it, it worked
fine in its day but the way the system is used now makes it obsolete
from a feature standpoint, and just because we've been using it up 'til
now is not a good reason to keep using it when the environment changes.

response 5 of 112:

Oct 11 20:20 UTC 2004

I was out of the loop on that decision.  There was a board meeting, Marcus
was there (as a member of the board, I think) and the decision came out not
to use Picospan.  I think most of the Picospan users won't notice that they
are running Fronttalk instead.  I think a few bugs will be found, reported,
and fixed, and then it'll be fine.  I think the motivation of the decision
was that Grex doesn't really want to be dependent on software it cannot
modifiy.  It is beyond Marcus's legal capability to give Grex that power over
Picospan.  I had understood that there was an OpenBSd version of Picospan,
but it has never been installed on NextGrex.

response 9 of 112:

Oct 12 04:04 UTC 2004

Picospan is available to be installed.  (Note the lack of a witch in tense;
'tis significant.)

response 11 of 112:

Oct 12 14:12 UTC 2004

'Its.

response 13 of 112:

Oct 12 17:21 UTC 2004

Even if it turns out that there are a few glitches in FrontTalk that
need to be fixed, I think that the decision to move to it is a sound
one.  Even if PicoSpan had been ready to go on NextGrex, I'd favor
switching to FrontTalk.  PicoSpan has served conferencing well, but
it's old architecture and we can't modify it.  Time to move on.

With software we can modify, we can experiment with improving the
conferencing environment.  I think that even Backtalk was hampered in
that regard due to the requirement of compatibility with PicoSpan.

response 15 of 112:

Oct 12 17:58 UTC 2004

Re. 13:  Don't forget that change is not a prerequisite of activity; indeed,
activity is a prerequisite of change.

response 17 of 112:

Oct 12 21:39 UTC 2004

I wouldn't dare do that, KA.

response 19 of 112:

Oct 13 02:39 UTC 2004

I hope youstill have your rotary phone, ryan

response 21 of 112:

Oct 13 03:21 UTC 2004

Richard we don't need to -get- permission, we have permission to use Picospan,
just the way it is.  

You would have to trace the disposition of the assets of the company to find
out who "owns" Picospan at the moment.  I doubt that anything with value was
missed by the lawyers for the creditors of the company.  You do not have to
maintain a company, you only have to dispose of its assets, one of which is
a copyright.  

Just because it is difficult to figure out who owns the copyright, does not
mean that we can ignore copyright law.

response 23 of 112:

Oct 13 07:01 UTC 2004

As long as political winds blow the way they do today, copyrights will
never expire; they will be good forever.