CrossPoint

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

CrossPoint (mostly abbreviated as XP ) is now a free text-oriented mail program for various mailbox networks such as the Z-Netz , FidoNet and MausNet . In addition Crosspoint also dominates Internet - mail and Usenet - News , this both via UUCP and by external clients via the protocols POP3 / SMTP and NNTP . Even in times of graphical user interfaces, CrossPoint is a full-fledged mail and newsreader that can be used with almost all known operating system platforms.

Purpose of the program

Originally CrossPoint was a so-called point program , i. H. a software for automatic send and receive private and public messages to a mailbox computer . Point programs are optimized to keep the user's online times as short as possible, on the one hand to minimize online or telephone charges, and on the other hand to free up the mailbox telephone line for other users. Messages pending to be sent were sent and received messages were downloaded. Then the connection was terminated. This procedure was usually done once a day.

Development history

CrossPoint successor OpenXP in a KDE console under Linux

In late 1991, Peter Mandrella began developing CrossPoint. The main reason for this was his own dissatisfaction with the Point program MessageBase ( MsgBase for short ) from Holger Lembke, which he had used up to now and which also served as a template for the CrossPoint development.

CrossPoint v1.0 was released in 1992 as shareware for the DOS operating system . It was a pure point program for the Z-Netz and its data exchange protocol Netcall . Version 2.0 appeared at the end of 1992, which also supported FidoNet , MausNet , MagicNet , QuickMail and the data format of the new Z-Netz protocol ZConnect . In addition to MessageBase, CrossPoint was the first point program to work with almost all mailbox networks that were relevant at the time and without the need for additional converters .

Among the DOS point programs, CrossPoint set new standards in functionality and user comfort. In the heyday of the mailbox networks in the mid-1990s, it was by far the most widespread point program with an estimated 25,000 users, especially in the German FidoNet and the Z-Netz. In addition to MessageBase, it replaced the Z- Netz "Ur- Point program" QuickPOINT by Marc Zimmermann and the Yuppie! Program in German FidoNet . from.

From version 2.15β (August 1993) Crosspoint also dominates Internet - mail and Usenet - News about the protocol UUCP . With various freeware packages (e.g. UKA PPP or UKAD for DOS or VSoup or UKAW for Windows ), which are integrated in the original CrossPoint version via batch files and in the further developed versions via a specially implemented interface , you can also Use the POP3 / SMTP and NNTP protocols via TCP / IP connections and thus access any mail and news server on the Internet.

In 1996, Peter Mandrella stopped developing CrossPoint. In December 1999 he released the source texts of CrossPoint 3.20β under his own license, but the successor versions developed on the basis of them (initially) still required registration. In February 2001 the source texts were then placed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) in an additional license ; the obligation to register for versions further developed under this license was no longer required. Further developments that had already been started under the previous license had the choice of keeping them (and thus both mandatory registration and the name "CrossPoint") or switching to the GPL and thus no longer being able to name the program "CrossPoint" (unless for a fee Licensing of this trademark registered by Peter Mandrella ).

At the initiative of the maintainer of FreeXP (at that time still OpenXP / 16 ), Peter Mandrella lifted the registration requirement for the versions developed under the original license in June 2003, so that the former shareware can now be used as freeware (in the sense of of no longer chargeable) as well as free software (in the sense of freely accessible source texts).

Additional programs

Various extensions have been developed to complement Crosspoint. One of the most popular and powerful add-on programs for Crosspoint is a filter program called XpFilter, with which you can redirect, filter or manipulate incoming (or outgoing) messages using widely customizable commands, among other things using regular expressions , so that Crosspoint - persistent efforts to define the Filters provided - an almost unprecedented individually adaptable protection against spam is possible.

Multi-network capability and associated disadvantages

In addition to current Internet / Usenet standards, CrossPoint also supports practically all (formerly) relevant mailbox networks . In order to achieve this, these "foreign formats" are converted internally into the ZConnect format. Such a conversion is problematic because the various standards differ in their capabilities. It comes across with complex techniques such as B. MIME to its limits. However, newer versions of CrossPoint, and FreeXP in particular, have resolved many previous related issues. Due to the internal use of ZConnect, the program and documentation almost exclusively contain Z-Netz terminologies such as “Board” instead of “ Newsgroup ”, “PM” instead of “ E-Mail ” or “AM” instead of “ Posting ”. As a result, users prefer to use these terms in networks where they are not common. Another point of criticism is that the support of many different formats without using an object model led to a confusing source code.

successor

CrossPoint successor FreeXP in a console under Windows XP

After the source code was released, various developments were made (most of them under the original license, one under the GNU GPL) and portings to other systems. The further development of the version lines FreeXP and XP2 under the "old" license continued to take place under the name "CrossPoint", while the version OpenXP, which was further developed under the GNU GPL, was no longer allowed to use it. However, all versions had the abbreviation XP in their (possibly additional) proper name , which was the common abbreviation for CrossPoint from version 1.0.

Since the conventional mailbox networks no longer play a significant role, the main focus of further development was on expanding the capabilities of XP as a mail and news reader for the Internet / Usenet . All further developed XP versions were MIME and multipart capable (albeit to a different extent) , supported a different number of character sets (including UTF-7 / 8 ) depending on the version , while the last original version v3.12d by the original author Peter Mandrella only offered rudimentary MIME support and, from today's perspective , can no longer be recommended for mail and news use in the Internet / Usenet and is no longer widely used there.

The source texts of all further developed versions are publicly available, either via a version management system such as CVS or SVN , or they are offered for download as a complete package. These are:

FreeXP (DOS, Windows)

Originally the 16-bit branch taken over by OpenXP in January 2002 and initially continued independently under the name OpenXP / 16 ; the name change took place in July 2003 u. a. because of the freeware status that has been in effect since then and the clearer definition of the concept from OpenXP . Thanks to the ongoing development of the "UUZ" message converter, FreeXP has the highest level of RFC conformity of all XP derivatives. In addition to additionally implemented functions such as MIME multipart dispatch and “Reply-To-All”, numerous bug fixes and high stability, this is probably the reason why FreeXP was probably the most frequently used XP derivative at the time.

OpenXP (Windows, Linux)

The only known further development under the GNU GPL (32 bit). OpenXP has the best hopes for prospects due to the complex conversion to 32-bit code.

XP2 (DOS)

Fork from the OpenXP project was created in 2000, but there has been no new public beta version since 2002 and further development is "paused" according to the official interpretation. Because of the missing functions “MsgID-Request” and “HdrOnly” in FreeXP , XP2 enjoyed a high level of acceptance by some users, especially in cooperation with the XP2-compatible “Enhanced UUZ” developed by FreeXP . There is no freeware version of XP2 in which the restrictions of the version requiring registration have been deactivated or removed.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Crosspoint - Source Code License. Retrieved February 6, 2019 .
  2. ↑ old CrossPoint source code license. Retrieved February 6, 2019 .