Stallings/Free-Net Study/4D
NovaServer and its client software NovaTerm were created by ResNova Software of Huntington Beach, California. In versions earlier than 4.0, NovaServer was known as NovaLink Professional. Version 4.04 was released in the spring of 1996.
In mid-1995, NPTN began endorsing NovaServer (then NovaLink) rather than First Class for use with rural Free-Nets. Like First Class, NovaServer runs on Macintosh computers, though it requires more memory and disk space. NPTN's decision to switch software was based largely on NovaServer's ability to allow users access to the Internet via telnet and a graphical Web browser included in the NovaTerm client. NovaTerm, like the First Class client, is free of charge and runs on both Macintosh and Windows computers. Like NovaServer, however, NovaTerm requires much more memory than its First Class counterpart. [NovaTerm does use less disk space than the FirstClass client, however, since it receives much of its display information from NovaServer while connected.]
The Worth County - Sylvester, Georgia Free-Net (WC-SGFN) runs on a Macintosh Quadra 650, since at the time of its founding that was the computer recommended by NPTN for rural systems using First Class (Guske). However, WC-SGFN soon converted to NovaServer and had to add more memory to handle it. NPTN's Rural Information Network program currently ships NovaServer systems with Power Macintosh 7100 computers including 16 megabytes of memory. WC-SGFN has six modem lines as well as an Internet connection. Users are allowed only 20 minutes per day unless they make donations to the system.
NovaServer has several advantages over First Class, but many of them are only visible to the system operators (sysops). In addition to a graphical interface for the users (via the NovaTerm client), NovaServer itself has a graphical interface for the sysops. In my experience as a NovaServer sysop this latter interface was consistent, reliable, and easy to use -- "technotonic," to use Westrum's term. The Internet access NovaTerm provides to its users is unmatched by any other BBS software I have seen, though it suffers in comparison to a full Internet connection from a commercial provider. Perhaps most importantly, the system is quite secure, allowing no one -- not even a sysop -- to do much damage without sitting directly in front of the server. It is also very private, in that users' mail files are accessible only to the sysop(s), and it is virtually impossible to determine users' e-mail addresses given only their real names.
NovaServer is, to my knowledge, unique in the BBS world in basing its communications with its NovaTerm client on HTML, the HyperText Markup Language of the World Wide Web. This means that people who do not have accounts on a system, using Netscape or another popular browser over the Internet, can be allowed access to a considerable amount of content stored on the system, allowing them to get a feel for it before registering as members.
NovaServer also allows the sysops to control which Internet sites various users are allowed to access, effectively permitting sites to be rated "G," "PG," and so on to match the community's moral standards. Kent Guske, the sysop of WC-SGFN, foresees this as the criterion that will turn people in Worth County away from the commercial Internet providers and bring them to the Free-Net: "It will just take one student to get caught using [a commercial Internet Service Provider] to access porno. We like Resnova for that reason. We can block." (Guske)
In addition to automatically generating text-based menus and a graphical interface (shown below) similar to First Class's, NovaTerm supports the use of custom menus (above) which resemble the "clickable image maps" that have become common on the World Wide Web. Unfortunately, these menus are created and stored in a format which is incompatible with that used on the Web.
Unfortunately, there is general agreement that NovaServer and NovaTerm are far from perfect. In fact, every NovaServer sysop I spoke with (with the exception of those who work for ResNova) informally expressed the opinion that the software is still in "beta testing" -- that is, it should not yet be considered a finished product because new flaws are still being found on a daily or weekly basis.
Lest I be accused of voicing only my own opinions of the software, I will instead quote messages that were posted during the summer months by NovaServer sysops from around the world on ResNova's own BBS, NovaCentral. One sysop did his own research, asking others to send him their complaints by e-mail. He compiled the following list:
[Note, 12/16/96: ResNova objected on grounds of copyright to my use of quotes from NovaCentral on a public Web page. Although I was unable to find any copyright notice on NovaCentral, I have complied with their demands by removing all direct quotations from NovaCentral from the public version of this page, and I have tried wherever possible to use substitute quotations to convey the same content. All original citations remain in the bibliography. If you have any questions or would like to request a copy of the original page for purely academic purposes, please contact me.]
[NovaCentral quotation excised -- partial summary: 13 sysops agree NovaServer does not have the functionality described in advertisements or the user manual, 3 feel that e-mail attachments are unreliable, 1 objects to lack of support for Open Transport networking. ] (Thirty-Five, Aug. 1)
I cannot personally vouch for numbers 3, 6, 7, or 9; I experienced no hard disk crashes, found the Internet and NNTP support to be flawlessly reliable, and did not look at the software code. I do have to agree with Anonymous Thirty-Six that the InfoLink protocol, which is designed to allow NovaServers to exchange information, does not work as the user manual says it does: it allows neither subscriptions nor deletions, and messages tend to replicate themselves in the outgoing message queue, forcing the sysop to manually delete them.
Perhaps more unfortunately for the fate of Free-Nets, however, the NovaTerm interface has been found by several sysops to be unreliable (Thirty-Seven, Thirty-Eight Jul.16) and inexplicably slow (Thirty-Five, Jul. 30) in comparison to other graphical interfaces. Others discovered that NovaTerm is very tricky to install on computers that use Windows 3.1 (Johnson, Arey Jul. 30, Thirty-Five Jul. 30). The Help screens frequently do not display all their contents (displaying blank white space instead) until their windows are resized -- and users who need help are not likely to think of resizing the windows. Users may attach files to mail messages, but they are not recognized by any other mail software (Arey, Jul. 30). The NovaTerm Web browser does not support many of the features which have become so common on the Web as to be considered standard, such as forms, tables, and font colors (Forty-One, Oct. 23). If a NovaTerm user double-clicks an icon while NovaServer is busy doing something else, she or he may be presented with an error message saying "There was a problem retrieving the requested URL."
In short, [unlike NovaServer] NovaTerm is not technotonic. Westrum's term for the opposite property is "technostressing": "A device is technostressing if it makes its users feel helpless ... using it demonstrates the user's lack of skill and knowledge of the device ... it is ugly or evokes bad sensations ... achieves disrepute through association." (p.223)
(Note: This is a composite image of menus from WC-SGFN. Multiple windows do
not actually remain active simultaneously.)
While the NovaTerm interface cannot honestly be called "ugly," in my opinion it pales in comparision to First Class's, in that icons cannot be moved or (with one exception) changed, and there is no way to list the options in order by name, date, or size. It can also really not be said that NovaTerm achieves disrepute through association, except in that its functionality is limited by NovaServer's. However, I feel that through its cryptic error messages and intermittently visible help screens NovaTerm did make me feel helpless and lacking in "skill and knowledge of the device," even after I had been using it on a daily basis for more than two months.
Confronted with these problems, many NovaServer sysops turned to ResNova and asked when they might expect a new version of the software. Several became angry when ResNova did not answer this question (Thirty-Eight Jul. 16, Johnson, Arey Jul. 27, Thirty-Five Jul. 28). A few became suspicious that work on NovaServer has stopped altogether (Johnson). One of the technical support representatives then posted to make it clear that ResNova has not abandoned the project (Forty-One, Aug. 21), but they have experienced a staff cut, and the remaining staff have been concentrating on other projects: [NovaCentral quote excised] (Jul. 29)
[Note: on November 20, ResNova Software posted to NovaCentral an article announcing that Microsoft had purchased Boulevard and Web for One (PRNewswire). ResNova then announced that development of NovaServer and NovaTerm has been discontinued, the source code is available for license, and technical support may be discontinued at the end of the year (ResNova).]
It would not be fair to end this section with the implication that everyone is dissatisfied. Many NovaServer sysops and NovaTerm users are happy with the software and have high hopes for its future. The respondent to my survey from Worth County unconditionally agreed with the statement that "The Worth County Free-Net's user interface is user-friendly and consistent." (Segers, Jul. 14). One sysop posted that he believes [NovaCentral quote excised] (Thirty-Eight, Aug. 1) Another defended the ResNova staff against a series of personal attacks:
[NovaCentral quote excised] (Katz)
[Note, 12/16/96: In light of ResNova's objections to my use of NovaCentral quotes on this page, I feel it would be beneficial to clarify my intent. This page is not in any way intended as an attack on ResNova Software; this research paper is about Free-Nets, not software companies. The purpose of this page is to indicate that WC-SGFN was not alone in experiencing frustration with NovaServer and NovaTerm. I feel that this frustration, with the accompanying loss of time, effort, money, and potential users, was a major cause of the period of stalled growth WC-SGFN experienced.]