🚀 go-pugleaf

Since people have asked for information about other PC BBS programs (after
seeing the Searchlight wars), I thought I'd post this.

WWIV is a BBS program written in C that is probably most unique in that 
the source code is available to all registered users. Obviously this gives
real maximum flexibility.

WWIV doesn't currently allow the sharing of data files, and thus cannot be
run multiline, but there is some effort to change that. As WWIV source code 
is in the hands of so many people, there is quite a bit of modification of
the BBS. Modifications (in c code) are distributed on many BBS's and on 
several networked subs. The enhancement of WWIV thus often comes from the
thousands of WWIV sysops (there are currently about 1200 systems in the
largest network, the WWIVnet) rather than only from the author, Wayne Bell. 
Ownership of modification code is not jealously hoarded, and thus it is
possible for WWIV to evolve quite quickly.

Because WWIV is shareware, and is also very inexpensive to register ($50),
a lot of people use it to run BBS's. It was once written in Basic, then in
Pascal, and since version 4.0 in C. The current version is 4.21. The next
update is to include a standardized method for handling multiple networks.
Of course there are mods available to do that now. As you might imagine, 
releases of WWIV generally are standardizations of modifications that are
the most useful. Wayne Bells major contributions of late have generally
been in the WWIV networking capabilities.

Andrew Lundberg