Talk:Telegard

2004 VfD
From VfD:

Ad. Josh Cherry 03:28, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Exploding Boy 06:06, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - advert - T&#949;x  &#964;  ur&#949;  17:08, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. They could have at least tried to not make it look like an ad.  --Ardonik 03:26, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete blatant and terrible ad. -- Cyrius|&#9998; 03:22, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep - Whoah, this is BBS history here! Telegard was a well-known and widely used BBS package in the late 80s and early 90s. I gave the article a small rewrite. Rhobite 03:56, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 18:07, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep with rewrite. Rhymeless 03:58, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. I remember Telegard boards.  Smerdis of Tlön 11:38, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. I remember them, too, but the way I remember having the flu. Geogre 14:43, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Comment. With Robite's rewrite, this no longer looks like an ad to me.  So if people really think this software is notable, I'm no longer opposed to keeping it. Josh Cherry 23:16, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Good to hear. Yes, Telegard is definitely historically relevant. Rhobite 23:19, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Kids these days...Sheez!  -- Bacchiad 23:22, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

end moved discussion

History
The Telegard FAQ that is distributed with the current Telegard BBS program archive addresses Telegard's somewhat murky history:

None of the history contained herein should be considered gospel. There are many rumours and half-truths swirling around the history of Telegard, and only the recent history has been recorded.

Wayne Bell is considered the "Godfather" of Telegard, which was based off early publicly distributed versions of Bell's WWIV BBS software in pascal (this part of history is still in contention by some...).

Carl Mueller obtained that code and improved on it, creating the first versions of Telegard.

Eric Oman took over the code, and improved Carl's work. He was inexperienced however and had to call upon his then friend Martin Pollard. Todd Bolitho would later join the team along with Robert McNaughton. Several versions were released during this time, culminating in the 2.5 standard release. Shortly afterward, Todd and Robert left the team due to "creative differences" with Martin. Eric left due to it being "not fun anymore". Martin, left alone, continued development work on Telegard until he was slapped with a legal lawsuit by Eric which temporarily stopped development (see section below "Minor Rebuttal by Eric Oman"). At that point, the latest standard release was still 2.5, but the beta versions 2.5i, 2.5j and 2.5q were floating around for use.

Telegard did not die, however, as version 2.7 would come out in 1991. This last version would be the mainstay of Telegard systems for years to come, while Telegard development would continue behind closed doors until Martins departure in 1993.

In September 1993 the Telegard project was handed over to Tim Strike, a utility author and Telegard beta site. In November 1993, the code changeover was complete, and by December 1993 the first beta version was available to the beta team (2.80.b1). The first 3 betas would mark the restoration of features that 2.80.b1 had gutted, and by 2.80.b4 the message, file and door routines had been rewritten. 2.80.b5 marked the introduction of Jam and Squish, and 2.80.b6 was the debut of the new file system. After almost a year and a half of development, the first public version of the new Telegard would be released as a gamma version, 2.99.g1 in July 1995. Telegard 3.0 would be released a year later, quickly followed by the patch versions 3.01 and 3.02. A year later, in November 1997, the first gamma version for the 3.10 series would be released, 3.09.g1.

A more emotional farewell message came from Martin Pollard himself, late in 1991, and widely distributed in the BBS community at the time:

*******************************************************************************  From: Martin Pollard                                Msg Num:    66 of   108 To: All                                         Date: 08 Dec 91  03:07:09 Subj: So long, and thanks for all the fish... Attr: Sent                                                         Read: N   Conf: Telegard BETA Discussion ******************************************************************************* MSGID: 1:120/187 2941e46d PID: TeleMail 1.50 On December 13th, 1991, the TELEGARD conference will be removed from the FidoNet EchoMail backbone, and the Telegard software will come to an end. This is being done for various reasons... but first, a little history... I have been with Telegard almost since the beginning... close to three years. When it was first released by Carl Mueller, it was little more than the WWIV version 3.21 public domain source code with Carl's name on it. At the time, Carl was involved in a number of illegal activities, such as hacking, phreaking, credit card fraud, and software piracy. Telegard was originally intended to be used by his friends who were into the same activities. As time went on, Carl added modifications to the software, and people began to take an interest in the software. It mainly attracted software pirates because of its ability to hide pirated files. It was also full of back doors so that Carl could hack into any board running it and have full SysOp access. Carl eventually got caught and busted for phone phreaking (the charges were eventually dropped), and the source code was turned over to Eric Oman, who removed the back doors and continued to modify it. Later on, Todd Bolitho joined the Alpha team in an organizational capacity, and I joined as Alpha and co-programmer by version 1.8. After version 2.4 I was doing almost all of the programming. It was around this time that the TELEGARD conference was placed on the FidoNet EchoMail backbone, as version 2.5 was enhanced to support EchoMail. During these three years, we've seen the software grow quite a bit, and its popularity along with it. Unfortunately, its reputation as a pirate BBS preceded it, and has been an albatross around the neck of the developers since its inception. Today, "Telegard" is synonymous with "Pirate BBS Hack", even though that definition has not applied for two years. Due to creative differences between Eric, Todd and myself, the team split up, and I was the only one left supporting Telegard. For the past year and a half I have received quite a few compliments about the software, but many more demands, threats and complaints, not to mention illegal hacks of the software that claim to be the "REAL" Telegard. This conference was supposed to be a place where Telegard SysOps around the world could participate in a round-table forum to receive technical support. I moderated the conference openly and fairly, and was very lenient upon people who broke the conference rules. From the moment that TELEGARD was put onto the backbone, however, it has been dominated by insults, foul language, flaming, software piracy, and overall childish behavior. I put Scott Raymond -- who has been involved with Telegard almost as long as I have -- in charge of the conference because he is a lot more heavy-handed than I am, and I wanted it that way. According to the current Backbone Operating Procedure (BOP) being followed by the Net, Regional, and Zone EchoMail Coordinators, backbone conference moderators and co-moderators have unilateral control over a conference, and NO ONE, not even the ZEC, is supposed to interfere in the workings of a conference as long as it does not interfere with backbone operations. In short, it means that a conference moderator is allowed to cut ANY feed o the conference he sees fit without providing a reason or fair warning; the only thing required is a note to the offending node that they have been cut from the conference. Over the past two months, ten individual links and an entire net gateway were cut from access to TELEGARD. In response, several of these people filed policy complaints against Scott Raymond, which they had no grounds to do, since he was well within his rights as the co-moderator of this conference. The NCs and NECs involved decided to ignore the BOP, however, since it seemed convenient to do so. Since it's still obvious that human stupidity is rampant and there will never be a way to curtail it in a completely public forum, we are taking that forum away. If you can't play nice with others, your toys get confiscated. This conference will be moved to the sanctioned Telegard support network, USTGNet. In that net, when a link is cut from the conference, it stays cut and no policy complaints will be accepted (as the policies of FidoNet do not apply to USTGNet). What does this have to do with Telegard itself? In a nutshell, version 2.7 will be the very LAST version of Telegard ever to be released, and that includes Beta and Alpha versions. In exchange for free software, free utilities, and free tech support, I and the remaining Telegard support team have received insults, hacks, stabs in the back from ex-Beta sites, and piracy of a Beta version (several, in fact) still in the testing stages... and still buggy. Therefore, after version 2.7, there will be no more Telegard. As far as I am concerned, the software will be dead and buried. The source code will NOT be released to the public. (The name "Telegard" itself is trademarked. Any BBS software using the name Telegard is in violation of current trademark ownership law.  The source code for version 2.5g that found its way to the public is owned by both myself and Eric Oman.  You may not put your own name on it as the programmer unless 75% or more of the code has been rewritten from the ground up.  If this is not the case, then you must give credit to Martin Pollard and Eric Oman in the copyright notice.  Any software not following the above requirements is in violation of current copyright law.) Why am I doing this? It's very simple: I'm tired of giving away something for nothing and getting nothing but grief in return. Except for a relative handful of people, the majority of the Telegard users have no respect for software authors, conference rules, or copyright laws. They not only expect everything handed to them for free, they DEMAND it, and expect me to kiss their asses while doing it. Thanks, but I'll pass; I'm not required to put up with this kind of grief over a goddamn HOBBY. Some of you may say that I'm chickening out, that I'm giving up, that I'm caving in to pressure from the ones who caused the trouble. I won't argue the point. On the other hand, those of you who caused the trouble will probably start partying and rejoicing after receiving this news, thinking you've "won" your battle against "the bad guy". All I can say is, party away, and rejoice in the fact that you've destroyed a great software package and reduced it to the level of Celerity, LSD, ViSiOn, Emulex/2, and their other pirate/hack siblings. To those people who have been loyal to Telegard and respected my wishes as author, I commend you on your perseverance and thank you for the support; you couldn't begin to guess know how much it meant to me. If you aren't already a member, I invite you to consider USTGNet (headed by Jack Reece); you stand a much better chance of receiving the tech support you deserve in that network. To those people who stabbed me in the back, pirated the software, turned this conference into a circus, and in general destroyed what was supposed to be an enjoyable hobby, congratulations; you got what you worked so hard to attain: the end of Telegard. You made your bed, now die in it. -=[> Martin Pollard <]=- ... TELEGARD Conference Moderator and Author of Telegard (Retired) --- Blue Wave/TGq v2.02/C+ Beta * Origin: The I/O Bus - TG_BETA Conference Moderator (1:120/187.0) PATH: 120/187 278/624

There were several fixes and feature enhancements in the late '90s as well as an OS/2 native version of Telegard (called Telegard/2) released in 1998.

All development stopped in 1999 after the Y2K patch release for Telegard. Tim Strike had disappeared from the scene, only to reappear on April 17, 2005 to announce that Telegard development was officially dead. He also said that Telegard could never be released as open source due to many different copyrights on the collective Telegard code. You can read the message from Tim here.

Minor Rebuttal by Eric Oman
In my entire life, I have never asked a lawyer to sue anyone. I am not sure where the myth began that I "slapped" anyone with a lawsuit, but this is false. It is easy to verify as false, because lawsuits are part of the public record.

Telegard was a good programming and teamwork experience for me, and the only reason I dropped out of the Telegard Team was because I needed to focus on my senior year of high school, and later, on college.

I am sorry that people gave Martin trouble after I dropped out of the project. I actually did not hear about Martin's bad experience until years later: that's how little I was keeping up with Telegard. Based on Martin's message (above) it sounds like some people were giving him a hard time, and I wish things had turned out better.

I have nothing but respect and good wishes for everyone involved in the Telegard project. Thanks to everyone for the good experience!

Additional rebuttal from Dan Chapman
I used to be an alpha site back in the days that Eric Oman was working on the source code. From my own personal experiences, I urge you not to take what Martin is saying as gospel. I was there for a lot of what he's discussing and his views of the situation do not match my own memories of how it all worked.

Also, Carl Mueller was never busted from what I remember. I've talked to him, he's never mentioned it. His assertion that Carl passed the software on to Eric is false. There was never a formal "passing of the torch." In fact, when I met Carl and asked him how he felt about the new author his only response was "Hey, that's cool." He wasn't aware of it.

In much the same fashion, no one formally passed the torch on to Tim Strike either. The source code got leaked, possibly by me in an accidental fashion. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hoshisabi (talk • contribs) 15:38, 4 May 2007 (UTC).

Additional rebuttal from Rob Shinn
I am an individual who has partial responsibility for the leak of the Telegard 2.5g source code mentioned by Martin and Dan. Suffice it to say I copied the source code from Dan without his knowledge. My intention was, as a stupid kid just barely 18 and in the grand tradition of WWIV and Telegard, to create the successor to Telegard as Eric had just announced that Telegard was dead. Unfortunately, the source I stole was uncompilable, and I was too stupid to figure out why (a couple years later I got that same source to compile after some simple modifications!) so I sent it to a friend (who shall remain nameless unless he himself chooses to come forth) to see if he would have any better luck. He subsequently uploaded it to several BBSes and the rest is history.

In my recollection from reading messages on TELEGARD, TG_BETA and in a couple of netmails I exchanged with Martin during this period (none of which I have anymore), Martin definitely had no plans to continue Telegard after Eric and Todd dropped out. Some time later, after some egging on by the same community Martin refers to in his now infamous rant, Martin announced that he would do a few more releases to fix bugs and that eventually he would be writing his own system that he referred to as "MartyGard". (MartyGard never appeared, needless to say.) To his credit, Martin never said Eric 'slapped him with a lawsuit'. What Martin said is that Eric 'threatened him with a lawsuit.' Whether the threat is a fabrication on Martin's part or not is not clear to me. In any case, Martin himself is respsonsible for the "Eric slapped Martin with a lawsuit" rumor, which may not be clear by reading the above commentary.

However, what I can say is that while the events leading to Martin's rant took place, the author of the immediately preceding rebuttal, Dan Chapman, had already long since taken down his BBS, The Quest for the Holy Grail, and he himself seemed to have disappeared from the Metro Detroit BBS scene altogether shortly after. In any case, as I recall, Dan wasn't around by the time Martin had 'taken over'. So no one can say for sure whether he's right or not. However, while I am inclined to take Eric at his word, it is interesting to note that in his rebuttal, Eric sticks strictly to the statement that he never 'asked a laywer to sue anyone' and does not say that he never threatened to sue Martin.

More Notes from Dan Chapman
I was only commenting about the beginning of Martin's message, not the end. Telegard was not "meant for piracy," Carl Mueller was not mysteriously busted for phreaking but no charges were filed. It's a strange set of accusations, and does not match with the stories that I've heard from all of the other people mentioned. I had talked to all of the individuals that he had strange, specific accusations about, Carl Mueller, Dave Bosivenu, and Eric Oman. (All of whom had no contact with the others, so no prior coordination of stories was likely.)

In fact, given his claims that the early version of Telegard was only used for ... Well, activities that I would hope that you could personally vouch I wasn't involved in, I think you could vouch on my behalf for this. That message had a strange tone of a peculiar fiction, and I wanted to make the point that given the beginning's issues, I did not have much faith on the rest being accurate.

And as far as me having been "long gone," the timeline was that I took my BBS down sometime before September of 1991, the message posted above was December of 1991, having moved to the Lansing area and the 517 BBS scene, and re-opened in that area code.

Hoshisabi (talk) 02:54, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Citation for Tim Strike
I can personally vouch for the citation made by Tim Strike that is referenced to the original document that is now at my website. Tim logged onto my BBS and posted this message in TG_SUPPORT from there. I am the moderator of TG_SUPPORT in Fidonet.

Sean 08:41, 23 October 2007 (UTC)