• FidoGazette V18 I06 Page 3

    From Sean Dennis@1:18/200 to All on Monday, March 14, 2022 18:21:13
    FGAZ 18-06 Page 3 21 Mar 2022


    =================================================================
    FIDONET HISTORY
    =================================================================

    The story of the very first Krautfunding
    Ward Dossche @ 2:292/854


    Krautfunding these days seems to be very normal but it has escaped
    many people how it all started and how influential Fidonet in it has
    been ...

    It was in 2000 sometime when a German sysop by the name of Helmut
    Hullen was excommunicated by his NC, re-listed by his RC24, again
    excommunicated by the next RC24, before he was finally removed the
    Z2C. In the process of this both RC24 and ZC2 were threatened with
    lawsuits if Helmut wasn't re-listed.

    RC24 gave in but Z2C didn't crumble and Helmut Hullen took him to
    court, in Belgium. Helmut Hullen hired the services of one of the
    most famous criminal attorneys (Sven Mary), how he could afford that
    for such a silly thing is a mistery to me. To make a long story
    short, after a year and a half of proceedings and 4 sessions he lost
    the case, had to pay his lawyer, had to pay a law firm in Germany and
    had to pay the cost of the procedure.

    My costs, as I was that ZC, were the fees of the lawyer. Pretty big
    amount for a mere hobby of an insignificant network.

    So here's this incredible sysop by the name of Udo Zaydowicz who left
    the network in the meantime, coming up with the idea to start a
    collection in R24 because the Z2C was not taken to court for some
    private dispute. He was taken to court for a FidoNet matter based
    upon Policy 4.07 and was representing FidoNet in court (not my
    words).

    Michiel van der Vlist, who started a collection in R28, wrote in
    ENET.SYSOP: "Well I guess all of FidoNet has won. So
    co[n]gratulations to us all."

    The costs were slightly more than 1000 Euro and 30 nodes/points in
    R24 plus the R28-contribution pledged more than 1500 Euro. Udo
    managed the R24-portion by generally requesting about 2/3 of the
    pledged amounts and upon delivery of the final invoice, that was
    transferred to the Z2C. I don't remember anymore how the R28-portion
    was handled.

    There is an aftermath to this story ...

    Helmut Hullen remained out of the nodelist but some years later he
    approached the Z2C to be relisted. After consulting with the then RC24
    he was told that could happen but only if he refunded the money my
    lawyer charged me ... To my surprise he did ... And a word is a word
    ... Helmut became back a node after spending some months in purgatory
    (i.e. as a zone-independent node 2:2/530 under my immediate view) to
    see if after 5 years of absence things would remain calm.


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