Yes folks its that time again when we take the time to remember those who did more than their bit to keep us all together as a thriving community.
Three years ago, 19th september 2005 the vital WinMX.com connection Peer Caches fell slent and ceased to allow anyone to connect to the network, this was totally unexpected and for most users a dramatic and terrifying jolt of reality check, the network was not as some believed fully decentralised, over a million users had discovered the hard way that the nework was overnight no more
Many news sites covered the closure with large but fairly detail lacking stories that contained much speculation and little fact, there was after all little information to reveal as the Canadian president of Frontcode Technology (aka WinMX Technologies) had become a shadow and has to this day made no public comment on the closure or the threat he faced that caused him to close the network he had devoted many years of his time creating, for basically little reward.
It must have been a soul crushing decision, with over a million users relying on him alone, Kevin Hearn was pushed into a corner that left no room for manouvere.
The community was one of alternately mixed emotions following the suprise event, anger and despair took hold of many of the regular users, but for a hard core the desire to right the perceived "wrong" was strong and slowly they sought out each other to discuss technical solutions to the puzzle that had presented itself.
This they did and in a remarkably short space of time, with the best technical minds across at least 8 different countries the solution to the puzzle took a mere matter of days, 3 days in fact.
Most of you know the rest of the legend that forms the basis of the continued user operations and the subsequent unfortunate efforts by various groups to take the community in opposing directions, this 3rd year of user operation of the network heralds a major initiative to bring together the community once again.
I ask you to join me in saying once again our thanks to those who worked around the clock in keeping the WinMX community alive, not just the tech folks you all know but the lesser known folks, those who made posts and worked in spreading the message to the internet of keeping faith that a solution would be found, users who answered the same question thousands of times without complaint, and those few thousand who kept their WinMX connected at any cost to ensure there was something left of the network to connect to, without the team work and support of literally thousands the breakthroughs and final solutions may not have been possible, without the faith of you all in each other we would not be the community we are today.
I salute you all this day for your help in keeping WinMX alive and our treasured community a place where people are treated as people and not as customers, this is the WinMX spirit and may it live on in our hearts and minds for many more years.
