🚀 go-pugleaf

	While reflecting that the famous anonymous FTP site at
wsmr-simtel20.army.mil shut down 10 years ago this Tuesday (September
30th), I also remembered that, 4 years ago on the same date, the
Cleveland Freenet was turned off.

	Freenet was invented here, was a great community success, but fell
victim to internal NIH Syndrome because Ray Neff didn't invent it.
Tom Grundner's kiddie-porn conviction didn't help any.  Still, Freenet
represents the pinnacle of the BBS system, and probably the first
electronic communications medium for many non-university people here
in Cleveland.  It could have been so much more, had CWRU cared to recognize
the PR goldmine they had and actually continued to support it.  As is typical
of this institution, when serendipity hands them something, they let it
slip through their fingers, because it wasn't in The Plan...

	I found that there was an international Coleco ADAM community through
the ADAM Forum, run by two local BBS sysops, so my alone-in-the-wilderness
hackings and disassemblies and bugfixes were able to get out to the rest
of the world.  And *that* led me to 10 (and still counting) ADAMcons (one
of which, XIII, I ran myself), and people all over North America that I
talk to every week.  I never would have found these people had it not been
through Freenet.  BTW, the ADAM Forum was the first community SIG on
Freenet, sysop E-mail account xx001.  Until just last year, when all
finger service was deactivated, you could still finger it (and all the
other xx accounts).

	Here's a session log from the next-to-last day that community
users (non-CWRUnet ids) could login to the system.  It was my wife's
account.  I actually have about 750K of log, from which I had once thought
about breaking up into hyperlinked pages as a sort of Freenet museum.  Never
had the time.  It took me a couple days to dig out the logfile :-)

	Sic transit gloria Freenet.

	*Rich*

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atdt3683888
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Translating "FNCOM57.CWRU.EDU"...domain server (129.22.4.3) [OK]
Trying PIGLET.INS.CWRU.EDU (129.22.8.16)... Open


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Local time is: Mon Aug 30 19:35:56 EDT 1999




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FreePort is a registered trademark of Case Western Reserve University
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                <<< FROM THE ADMINISTRATOR >>>


    The Cleveland Free-Net, a remarkable achievment for
    its time, has been made obsolete by new technologies.
    Chat and News services for community users will end
    on September 1, 1999. The Free-Net will be discontinued
    on September 30, 1999.
    
    CWRU faculty, staff, and students should immediately
    investigate the services provided by CWRUnet; information
    is available at Information Services Help Desk (KSL 105A),
    via e-mail to help@po.cwru.edu, and on the World Wide Web
    at http://www.cwru.edu/net/nutshell/miscl/free-cwru.html.

    CWRU alumni should visit the Alumni Affairs World Wide Web 
    site for information about the CWRUser program at
    http://www.cwru.edu/development/alum2/.
    That site gives an overview of the program, which is NOT an 
    ISP but a way to enhance alumni access to CWRU.

    Community users of Free-Net should explore alternate ways of 
    receiving e-mail and using Internet resources. Public libraries, 
    various continuing education programs, city recreation boards, 
    and community users' groups are excellent sources of information.

    MOVE OLD MAIL TO WORK DIRECTORY:  To aid users in downloading their
    e-mail to their local machines, a new menu option has been added
    to the post office area. [xx999 - Aug. 23, 1999]

There is a 60 minute time limit on this connection.

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gh772     Kathy Hemery
am335     Joan Cynthia Drushel
kxh56     Kun Huang
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fm882     Mary Kathleen Brigham
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-- 
Richard F. Drushel, Ph.D.            | "Aplysia californica" is your taxonomic
Department of Biology, Slug Division | nomenclature.  /  A slug, by any other
Case Western Reserve University      | name, is still a slug by nature.
Cleveland, Ohio  44106-7080  U.S.A.  |     -- apologies to Data, "Ode to Spot"