Re: What is the best way to add a newsgroup?

The Horny Goat <[email protected]> wrote:

> I've also heard that Agent was 'abandonware' which wouldn't surprise
> me given how many servers have abandoned Usenet as a whole.

Last paid version 8 was released 12 years ago (Oct 2014).  While a long
time since the last release, they're still accepting payment.  I believe
they are still running their own Usenet server (paid).  Not quite yet
abandonware, just old.  

Not sure anything has changed in the RFCs regarding NNTP since then.  I
think the NNTP extensions (RFC 2980) was the last major change to NNTP
back in 2000.  RFC 4643 was published back in 2006 (that updated RFC
2980 published in 2000).  Without any changes, there is no need to
update an NNTP client other than to fix bugs, or make GUI changes.

I don't use Agent Forte (played with the free version a couple decades
ago, but found better free alternatives), so I have not lurked over in
the alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent newsgroup to know if there are
any major defects with the program.

> You probably have forgotten the line from Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow
> Taxi" (which says a lot to me about Usenet which is a long way towards
> "gone" alas) which goes
> 
> "Don't it always seem to go
> That you don't know what you've got
> Till it's gone
> They paved paradise
> And put up a parking lot"

But what is there to pave over with the Agent "paradise"?  If it aint
broken, nothing to pave over.  I'm sure there remain some bugs, or RFEs
(Requests for Enhancement), but they would have to weight the cost of
further development, and fixing bugs in the new code, against their
volume of sales.  No idea of how much revenue trickles in for an NNTP
client in a communications venue that doesn't involve a web browser.  If
it aint Web, users born in the last 2 decades won't know how to use it.