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     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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