I updated WWIV networking software from NET37 to NET38b3. Rushfan is maintaining the official networking stack. I have some ideas for doing a complete rewrite for Linux, but am not sure if I can manage to write a portable rewrite.

The network stack of WWIV consists of several components. I’m planning to rewrite one component at a time, so that we can actually run the entire WWIV BBS + WWIV Network + WWIVToss (FTN<->WWIV) on Linux without resorting to dosemu.

Currently, the WWIV BBS software itself already runs on Linux. See WWIV BBS v5.0 Project.

The NET37/NET38 WWIV networking stuff runs mostly under DOS, so requires Linux WWIV sysops to use dosemu and some creative scripting to get it to work.

There is already a stub NETWORK.EXE replacement in the WWIV BBS project tree, which in turn calls NETWORK0.EXE, NETWORKB (Rushfan’s Binkp WWIV transport replacement) or NETWORKP.

NETWORKP (or the WWIV PPP Project component) has some parts of it that have already been replaced with a bunch of scripts which require Python to handle the transport of network files from the WWIV BBS to the hub via SMTP, and fetchmail to retrieve from the hub to the WWIV BBS via POP3. I’m currently working on replacing NETWORKP completely with a Python script to do the conversion of files from their Sx.NET format to their UUencoded format along with their mail headers. Once this is done,  NETWORKP.exe can be replaced on Linux.

NETWORKB is an option, of course. But I’m all for flexibility and having alternatives. Besides, it’s something I like working on while learning in the process.