FidoNet's own technical standard defines how boards traded mail

The workload

FTS-0001, the FidoNet Technical Standards Committee's own specification, defines what running a FidoNet node required, verified because it is the standards body's own text: a node's software had to place and accept calls to exchange messages and files in both directions, process the FidoNet-format nodelist naming every other node's routing address, and route mail without file attachments through the net host listed for its region. The document calls meeting these obligations a social obligation, since the calling system pays money for the attempt, tying compliance to the cost of a phone call. Revision 16, dated 30 September 1995 and written for the FTSC by Randy Bush, says it gleaned its content from earlier working documents rather than inventing the protocol, crediting the underlying mail protocol to Tom Jennings, whose February 1985 paper on FidoNet's electronic-mail protocol appears in the standard's own reference list, which also names Fido and FidoNet as marks belonging to Jennings.

What the documents show

Verified, from FTS-0001 itself: a node's core obligations were message and file transfer in both directions, nodelist handling, and routing without a file attached through net hosts; a companion document, FTS-0005, is cited as defining the nodelist format. Verified again, as a living description on the FTSC's own current site: FidoNet is a worldwide amateur mail and file transfer network that began approximately 1984, run by an elected body of developers and administrators who document technical practice; the page gives no node or user count. Neither document states how many boards ran the specification at any point, so a claim about FidoNet's peak size is not established here.

The operating cost

FTS-0001 does not itemize fees, because the FTSC published the standard for anyone to implement without payment; its own copyright notice grants a right to redistribute the document without modification and only at no charge. The real cost it imposes is the phone bill for placing and answering calls, a variable the standard names in principle but never quantifies, since rates varied by region and era. A specific period cost would require period telephone tariffs, not this specification.

The stop condition

The standard names no expiration; it remains a living reference published by the FTSC today, and node operators were free to stop running compliant software whenever phone costs or moderation workload stopped being worth it. Editorially, a volunteer sysop's stop condition was the point where nightly polling costs and routing labor exceeded whatever value came from running a node, since FTS-0001 describes obligations but never compensation.

• Who absorbs the cost when a distributed volunteer network routes your message through someone else's phone line?
• Does a technical standard's silence on a number mean the number was small, or simply undocumented?
• What obligations does a modern API integration inherit from a decades-old peer-to-peer routing convention?

FTS-0001 is a routing rulebook, not a usage report. It documents how independently run boards agreed to move mail and files, at the caller's own expense, and credits its underlying protocol to Tom Jennings without ever converting that credit into a count of nodes or users.