July 2, 1999
The Beta process will extend until all bugs are identified and
squashed. During the Beta, the WWIV source code will not be made
available.
LoraBBS features several messagebase formats (JAM, Hudson, Squish, FIDO,
and AdeptX). It can support an unlimited number of nodes and has several
Internet client features including telnet pass-thru and the ability to use
Internet usenet newsgroups in the message bases.
Next the structures will be finalized for RA version 2.60, which
will be the Y2K complient version expected to be released around
December 1999. RA 2.60 will store 4 digit dates in the userbase/
filebase records. The structures will soon be made publicly
available to allow third party developers to conform. Bruce says
there will be an upgrade fee for version 2.60, but the node-count
in the non-commercial versions will be increased from the present
2-node limit to at least 5 nodes in version 2.60 as an incentive
to upgrading.
Benjamin does plan to continue development of QuickBBS 2.90 soon.
It's been six months since the last "pre-release" version of 2.90
came out, which will be the Y2K complient version. It's unknown if
he still plans to have it done by the end of the year.
Three months earlier Clawson had announced that he was re-evaluating
their plans to continue serving the BBS community due to the constant
flaming, piracy and fraud by Sysops using their products. Fortunatly
it appears that he desided not to abandon the sysop community after
all, which comes as a relief to many sysops.
This will be the first update to Proboard since version 2.16 was
released "as-is" long after the previous author ended the beta
cycle back in 1996. While no new changes are expected in this
version, Clawson previously announced that portions of the Proboard
code will be intrigrated into their future Win32 BBS-Server product,
currently known as project Cherokee.
The Lithium Information System is a free open-source *nix package
which is client-server based, and allows multiple types of client
terminals. An ANSI client is currently being developed, will allow
telnet or dialup access. They also plan intragrate a web server,
allowing users to access the system using their browser.
According to developer Lloyd Weehuizen, the software allows for easy
3rd add-ons through the use of server modules, which are shared
libraries that are loaded when the server starts up. The client can
then request functions from the module seamlessly. The module can
control the client through a powerful scripting language, known as
Python. Each client includes a Python interpreter, which will allow
a module to have full control over any client types. The python
scripting language allows the menus and screens to be customized by
the sysop without requiring any programming experience.
Microsoft just announced that everyone that joined the CPP (Corporate Preview Progam)
and recieved beta3 for $59 will also be recieving Release Canidate 1 (RC1) next week
at no additional charge.
WWIV BBS News:
WWIV BBS 4.30 Beta 1 was released to the public today. This has
been the first release of this DOS based BBS in nearly 4 years.
4.30B1 is the first version of WWIV to support a Fossil Driver.
Other new features include an enhanced Wait-For-Call screen, an
enhanced "ListPlus Style" transfer system, a callback verifier,
a WYSIWYG macro editor, GUEST account support, an event manager,
and support for multiple archivers.
http://wss.wwiv.com/beta
LoraBBS News:
Craig Castle has taken over the LoraBBS 3.00 open source project for
Windows. During the past month Craig has released several updates of
this freeware 32bit BBS package. Lora was originally written by Marco
Maccaferri, who released 2.99 under the GNU public licence in mid-1997.
http://linux.coderite.com/~sysop/Lora.html
RemoteAccess News:
Bruce Morse plans to release two versions of RemoteAccess before
the end of the year. RA 2.53 will be a free upgrade, focused at
fixing many of the minor bugs in version 2.50 with no structural
changes or features. This is expected to be released shortly.
http://www.rapro.com
EleBBS News:
Maarten Bekers released EleBBS Gamma5 last week as scheduled, which
included several new features. In addition to the DOS/OS2/Win32
Gamma5 versions of this freeware RA clone, he has also introduced an
alpha version of EleBBS/Linux. He is currently looking for a lot of
people interested in alpha testing EleBBS/Linux.
http://home.wxs.nl/~elevator
QuickBBS News:
QuickBBS developer Benjamin Schollnick had a hard disk crash a few
days ago, that wiped out his entire BBS and mailer. Due to the crash,
and the added expense of the mortguage for his new house, Benjamin
has desided to keep the BBS down and to leave Fidonet.
http://www.quickbbs.com
ProBoard News:
On June 20th Pat Clawson announced that he will expects to release
the first ProBoard Y2K beta version in the early part of July. He
is currently looking for serious beta testers, perferably with PEX
or programming experience.
http://www.telegrafix.com
Lithium News:
Lithium 0.1.4 for linux was just released yesterday.
http://www.darktech.org/fusion
Inverse News:
Inverse BBS build 7 for DOS, OS/2 and Linux were released on June 15th.
This version includes dozens of bug fixes, and a faster display engine.
The Linux version now comes with the utils to edit the data files.
Inverse is Y2k Complient, supports JAM & Squish messagebases, includes
its own scripting language, and is freeware. Brian plans to release
another public build sometime this month which will include a real
installation package.
http://www.darktech.org/zoob/inverse.html
Windows2000 News:
As we reported in the May edition of the BBS news,
Microsoft is offering beta3 of Windows2000 to the public. Win2k, originally known
as NT5, is a much better suited operating system for running a multinode (or telnet)
BBS then any of the previous versions of Windows.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/preview/order.asp
If you have any additional BBS related news, please send to mike@pcmicro.com