Welcome to WaterGate,

The demand for electronic mail is increasing daily, as is the number of people reading and writing electronic messages. There is FidoNet, connecting thousands of Bulletin Board Systems and their users on all continents, and there is Internet, to which almost every university and major company has a connection. Then there are numerous other networks, using technology similar to the ones mentioned.

WaterGate is a mail processing program capable of processing both messages that were created by a FidoNet Technology compatible program, and messages created by a program that supports RFC822, the protocol widely used within Internet for e-mail. Finally, it supports a variant to the RFC822 protocol that is used for the over 10000 newsgroups within Internet, also known as Usenet.

From now on, the term UUCP will be used for both Internet e-mail and Usenet news, just like FidoNet refers to both netmail and echomail.

WaterGate was written to simplify the process of connecting both FidoNet and UUCP compatible systems by integrating the four steps needed to build a FidoNet/UUCP message host:

  1. Process and distribute UUCP messages, for us and other systems.
  2. Process and distribute FidoNet messages, for us and other systems.
  3. Translate (gate) messages between the two formats.
  4. Import either style message into message bases.
So, no matter if you are a Fido point, node, hub, zonegate, or UUCP node or hub, WaterGate is the program to use for processing all your netmail, echomail, mail and news.

In addition to that, it is loaded with tools and features like AreaFix for both FidoNet and UUCP(!!), mailing list server, read-only areas, file robot and options to import data from your previously favorite programs. We plan to support other transport mechanisms and mailers in future as well. It was designed to do this.

We hope WaterGate achieves its design goals: ease of configuration of both WaterGate and your complete mail processing system, speed of operation, computability, and stability.

The authors


Contacting the authors

The authors can be contacted at the following addresses:

Ramon van der Winkel
Internet: ramon@wsd.wline.se

Michel van der Laan
Internet: michel@nijenrode.nl

Support site, newsgroup and the mailing list

The WSD (Waterline Software Development) system at wsd.wline.se is our support site, operated by Ramon van der Winkel. Mail your problems and requests to ramon@wsd.wline.se. The latest patches are always requestable from our file robot. Send a message to watergate-info@wsd.wline.se to get a text file with a description of all the files you can request.

There is a newsgroup as well: alt.bbs.watergate.
Unfortunately, there are some distribution problems, apart for the continuous spam postings. Everything seems to work properly from the USA side, but posting in Europe doesn't make it far.

Finally, there is the WaterGate mailing list. To subscribe, write a message to listserv@wsd.wline.se and put the following command in the body of the message: "connect watergate" (without the quotes). After the reply from the listserver, you can send your problems to watergate@wsd.wline.se to have them distributed to everybody else that is connected to the mailing list. The main use of the mailing list is for announcements by the authors.


Disclaimer, legal stuff, license, money and you!

"WaterGate" refers to all executables and documentation included in the package that was released.

WaterGate is © Copyrighted material by Waterline Software Development V.O.F. in The Netherlands. By using this software you accept the terms of the license agreement stated below.

A commercial environment is any of the following: Remember that WaterGate is currently in a GAMMA phase. This means it needs extensive testing by YOU! Most parts of it are currently used by a number of larger sites, but this doesn't mean it is trouble-free all through! Stay up to date with the latest release. We try to release a new version at least every two months, so read ALT.BBS.WATERGATE or connect to the mailing list for release announcements.

Please do support the Shareware concept.

Limitations in the unregistered version

You can use all options when not registered. WaterGate does not contain a time lock or limitations whatsoever, except for the following: That is all. There is no limitation to the number of users, areas, mailing lists, send files, routings, domain names, networks, AKAs or what so ever. The limitations still allow you to evaluate the product to its full extent.
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Comments or questions? Send an e-mail to editor@wsd.wline.se.

Last updated 13 October 1996