• Fidonet Sysop Manifesto

    From Lee Lofaso@2:203/2 to ALL on Saturday, March 12, 2022 16:48:24
    Hello Everybody,

    Yes, it is true.
    Sysops did rebel against its founder, Tom Jennings.
    Gave him an ultimatum.
    Really.
    I kid you not.
    It is all in the Fidonews.
    Vol. 12, No. 24.
    12 - Jun 1995

    [..]

    Whereas FIDONET, for all its problems and troubles, has no direct
    governmental controls and stands second only to the InterNet for
    access, service, capacity and the freedom to speak, think and express
    our individual and collective thoughts; and,

    Whereas the present governance of FIDONET is, through its lack of
    response, secrecy and failure to inform its membership of its actions,
    working in direct contravention of the original principles of FIDONET
    as espoused by Tom Jennings and sysops since the very creation of
    FIDONET, has failed to uphold the principle of communication, first,
    last and foremost; and,
    FidoNews 12-24 Page: 4 12 Jun 1995


    Whereas this failure in governance denies the membership of
    communication as well as growth, development, promotion and advancement
    of FIDONET through a series of "band-aid approaches" which do nothing
    to solve the basic and underlying problems and instead serve to
    insulate the governance from complaints, problems and criticism which
    that governance does not wish to hear, let alone act upon...

    THEREFORE...We, the member sysops of FIDONET, request:

    that TOM JENNINGS tentatively revoke the copyright and
    permissions of FIDONET from the governance of the
    communications network that bear its name, including
    all technologies involved in the processing of links
    and nodes;

    that said copyrights be granted to a provisional governing board
    which contains none of the present members of the governance of
    FIDONET at the Regional level and higher, nor any sysop who has
    served in such a capacity within the previous five years, with
    such a body drawn by a majority vote of participating sysops in
    each Region in accordance with present FIDONET Policy 4.07, and
    Zone officials to be drawn as well with the same restrictions as
    listed herein;

    that said revocation by TOM JENNINGS be scheduled for October 1,
    1995, unless and until TOM JENNINGS is satisfied that actions
    taken by the present governance meet or surpass the spirit of
    the FIDONET structure, and answer to the eight specific problems
    stated herein.

    We post this notice publicly on the 15th of June, 1995.

    In the same issue is Tom Jennings' response, titled "Infestation
    of manifests". For those interested in reading it, please visit the
    Fidonews library ...

    --Lee

    --
    Always in beta

    --- MesNews/1.08.05.00-gb
    * Origin: news://eljaco.se:4119 (2:203/2)