From Newsgroup: alt.bbs.pcboard

On Sunday, August 16, 1998 at 2:00:00 AM UTC-5, John L. Crane wrote:

On Thu, 13 Aug 1998 12:39:14 GMT, abac...@prontomail.com (Abaciscus)
wrote:

software market I can think of. The free-lunchers, ingrates and
pirates make BBS software programming a field that few people in their >right mind should enter, especially if they want to make money.

I'm struck with a few thoughts on this matter...
First, I've always considerd this a hobby, not a business. I've never expected to make a fortune off BBSing. At best I expected not to go
broke from it.
From that viewpoint who can spend a fortune on the latest wizz bang
feature they might not even want. I've seen some laughable prices on
some addons.
Secondly BBSing is supported by a grass roots bunch of hacks
(dscription offered in the good sence). When a friend and I wanted a
TRIBBS like menu system we wrote one and uploaded it to SaltAir.
People who care about the medum giving back, perhaps the way it should
be..
I think your right that there isn't a lot of money to be made in
BBSing, there never was. Even then, I'd love to be able to fiind and redgesture a couple of programs.

I know this is ancient and nobody will likely ever see this, but I'd like to say, from a quarter century in the future, after getting caught using a pirated copy of PCboard as a 15yo sysop, I wrote a letter to Fred Clark apologizing and explaining my situation, in hopes that I would not get "kicked out of the community" cuz I was young and stupid, and two weeks later I received a package with really generously licensed copy of PCboard, free of charge, and a letter I wish I still had. Even though it was the "fancy" solution, and I had used Wildcat! for years, and I always thought of Clark Development as the rich corporate assholes, well, despite that, I learned Fred Clark was actually a good dude.
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