LysKOM
More info
- Creator
- Lysator, Linköping University
- Released
- 1990
- Type
- Computer conferencing system
- License
- GPL
- Predecessor
- KOM
The Lysator computer club's free rewrite of KOM, which turned the conferencing system into a networked client and server — and which is still running.
Lysator's members had grown used to KOM and wanted a system of their own that wasn't tied to one mainframe. The result, in service from 1990, was a server, lyskomd, and an open network protocol, Protocol A, that anyone could write clients for. The most popular client was written in Emacs Lisp and runs inside Emacs, which tells you something about the audience.
Server and clients alike were released as free software under the GPL. LysKOM became one of the longer-lived Swedish online communities and has outlasted web forums and several generations of social media, with the same meetings, the same "next unread" and, in part, the same writers.