the right platform for these projects

[Stanton McCandlish <anton@hydra.unm.edu>]

I agree wholeheartedly that a commandline, portable, version should come
first. Porting that separately to X, Win, Mac, etc will not be nearly the
chore that porting a Windows app to Unix will be.  

Re: the ubiquity of Windows:
LOTS of people have Windows. But...
The idea that new machine sales are mostly Windows machines is given the
lie somewhat by the fact that they are also all DOS machines, and that
Windows is just bundled.  Many people don't install it due to the disk
space leeching.  And a LOT of people with Windows don't use it for comm
stuff because Windows + comm = nightmare.

So yes, make a Windows version.  NO don't start with a windows version.
One of your biggest markets will be the BBS crowd, 90+% of whom use DOS,
not Windows, for comm apps. 

And I still heartily recommend tackling this from several different
angles. Sure make a new term, but also get Telix, et all to go along with
it.  Get Fido-tech mailer makers to support the ^ENC "standard", etc. -- 
        When marriage is outlawed only outlaws will be inlaws!
Stanton McCandlish,  SysOp:  Noise in the Void DataCenter Library BBS
Internet anton@hydra.unm.edu     IndraNet: 369:1/1      FidoNet: 1:301/2     
Snail: 1811-B Coal Pl. SE, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 USA
Data phone: +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400 v32bis, N-8-1)
Vox phone:  +1-505-247-3402 (bps rate varies, depends on if you woke me up...:)