Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2002 16:23:08 -0800 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Don Tyson <tyson@stanfordalumni.org> Cc: "Julian H. Stacey" <jhs@berklix.com>, freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD on the desktop (was: TheRegister article on Hotmail) Message-ID: <3DE2BEEC.B4C46703@mindspring.com> References: <E18GSVC-0003id-00@grebe.mail.pas.earthlink.net>
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Don Tyson wrote: > > "Anthony Atkielski" wrote: > > > I don't work for Microsoft. > > > > http://www.atkielski.com > > Section: "FAQs and Essays" Click: "On Software" Scroll to: "Microsoft" > > ] I have what the Wall Street Journal and the SEC would call a > > ] "financial interest" in Microsoft > > Remove Anthony because he has a financial interest in > MS? Remove him from the advocacy list if you want > because this thread has gotten out of hand, but please > don't establish a "financial interest" requirement for > participating in the advocacy list. He wasn't. He was speaking to motive for the content of the postings. It's the content that people have found objectionable, specifically the advocacy of Microsoft products on a mailing list intended for meta-discussions on FreeBSD advocacy, and not for particular *acts* of advocacy, and his incentive for such advocacy not being altruistic, as he claimed. The only possible purpose for such postings would be to "get on the record" arguments *against* FreeBSD, in a forum which a search would likely discover postings, when someone went looking for arguments *for* FreeBSD. I think I could get behind a Windows weenie who was a Windows weenie out of genuine altruism; I'd still probably tell them to post their advocacy of Windows to "advocacy@microsoft.com" instead of "advocacy@freebsd.org", though, if they started arguing their position on this list. If I were a "conspiracy theorist", as Anthony claimed, I would actually interpret his postings as a meta-meta attempt to provoke an immune response out of an online community, in order to test boundary conditions for self-assembling communities (an attempt to study us, by someone who wasn't very deft at designing his experiments), and claim that the Anthony identity was merely a cutout (after all, has anyone here ever met him in person?). I'd like to think that, were that the case, I've seriously skewed the data, destroying its utility. He should have started his study of online communities in 1986, when I did, and he'd realize that he's not poking at the interesting parts. 8-) 8-). > For that matter, if Bill Gates wants to participate and > stays within the charter, what's the problem? I'd personally welcome Bill's participation; for one, it'd be a hell of a publicity coup. Front page WSJ stuff... 8-). -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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