Editorial

Ask Not What FIDONET Does for You...
Doug Myers

The title, of course, paraphrases John F. Kennedy's famous statement "Ask not what your country can do for you... ask what you can do for your country." Now it's tough for me to iconize ol' Jack Kennedy - I still remember when he ran for President of the US, and I still remember how he botched the Bay of Pigs Invasion. But it occurred to me recently that the old boy may have been on to something there. After all, don't most religions and philosophies promote the virtue of giving?

The column ECHOTALK for this week features my own and others responses to one asking for reasons to continue reading the echo. The responses all, in one way or another, emphasize that he must put something into the echo to enjoy it.

Think back to your own echo experiences - do you enjoy echoes the most when you just read through them, or do you enjoy them most when you're posting?

Perhaps this is the key to revitalizing Fido! What is it that Fido offers better than the Internet? Answer: Fidonet needs you to do for it more than the Internet ever will... The Internet has Bill Gates and all the DotCom entrepreneurs to fuel it - it doesn't need us amateurs to fuel it. Fido, on the other hand, falls apart quickly without amateurs to move the mail, make the echoes come alive, keep the nodelist in order, write the (mostly) free software which runs our systems, and serve as uplinks for other systems.

As a personal note, I've got to say that I've enjoyed Fido most when I've been doing something for it. How may of those of you reading this share the same experience?

Perhaps we'll attract folks to Fidonet not by telling them what Fido offers them, but by telling them why Fido needs them.