Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Talking about non-free software on the list

[Bob Ham]

On 2013-03-07 15:47, Pete Morris wrote:

> The fact that I am not 'pure blood' does not in and of
> itself mean that I am unable to have an interest in free software, 
> nor
> that any comments I or others might make should be unwelcome.

Nobody has suggested that your comments would be unwelcome.  I would 
hope that yourself and anyone else with an interest in software freedom 
would feel their comments are welcome.

All that has been suggested is that the mailing list have a policy of 
excluding the promotion of distributions that do not adhere to the FSF's 
Guideliness for Free System Distributions.  I don't think that's an 
unreasonable policy.


> Might I
> suggest that if people are so vehemently opposed to speaking with
> others who are not exclusively of their own belief persuasion that
> they consider meeting up for a pint and a chat to air their points of
> view in person.

I am not opposed to speaking with others.  On the contrary, I welcome 
debate to refine policies and identify problems that can damage users' 
freedoms.  That's what we're doing here and it's on-topic.

Discussions may become strained at times but that is to be expected as 
we're all human and we have a vested interest in these matters.  The 
fact that a discussion could become strained is not a reason to avoid 
it.  We are here to do work, not avoid delicate subjects.


Manchester Free Software is part of the Free Software Movement and 
thanks to the Internet, this movement is not geographically bound.  MJ 
Ray lives in the West Country.  I would love to have a drink with him 
and discuss the finer points of Debian's freeness but unfortunately, 
that isn't very practical.  What we can do, though, is discuss such 
matters on this mailing list.

That we have a Debian Developer here and willing to argue for Debian in 
discussions about the distribution's freedom and MFS policy, is 
something that I value, even though I may argue diametrically opposed 
views.


> It will give my inbox a rest if nothing else...

I assume from this comment that list messages are arriving in your main 
inbox.  If that's the case, can I suggest that you use a mail processing 
program like procmail to separate list messages into separate mail 
folders?

  http://www.procmail.org/

After all, this is a discussion list rather than an announcement list 
so long threads are to be expected.


Kind regards,

Bob

--
Bob Ham <address@hidden>

for (;;) { ++pancakes; }