GK> He wrote the original FidoNet software to exchange mail among BBSes. GK> Without that pivot point, no network wouldn't have started off, FidoNet GK> protocols would have neither been defined nor implemented.
Incorrect.
Parallel to Fidonet some geeks in France also programmed on something which would become BBSs, mailers and a network. Fully incompatible with the parallel Fidonet.
It caught on in France, the french-speaking portions of Belgium and Switzerland, French overseas territories, Quebec ... It also explains up to some point why Fido never caught-on in the french speaking parts of Belgium.
Philippe Liebaert, who has been a sysop in good-standing many-many moons ago, wrote BBS-software for that network and later ported it to Fido-standards.
The network was called Francomedia but had to heavily compete against the French Minitel system and eventually the participants folded or converted to Fido.
Had Tom Jennings not been where he was and done what he did, there still would have been amateur-networks.
Without the Wright brothers, there still would have been aviation. Richard Pearse flew an airplane before the Wright brothers did.
Had Marie Curie not discovered Radium, someone else would've.
Etc...
Tom Jennings in my eyes achieved nothing worthwhile ...
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--- D'Bridge 3.99 SR40 * Origin: The best gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap (2:292/854)
