[Mailman-Users] Goodmail spells doom for mailing lists?

[Brad Knowles]

At 3:58 PM -0800 2006-03-04, Dave Crocker wrote:

>>  	To my astonishment, you seem to be interested in doing nothing
>>  except acting as a corporate shill.
>
>  I was raised during a time in which parents were told to distinguish
>  between saying to their kids "you are doing a bad thing" versus "you are
>  a bad person".
>
>  Does this have any rules about ad hominem attacks?

	Did I actually call you a corporate shill?  Did I say that's what 
you're actually doing?

	I think maybe you skipped over a few words in there that should 
leave you plenty of room to prove that you may be creating the 
appearance of acting like a corporate shill, but in fact you are 
doing something totally different and the problem is that there is a 
misperception that is being created.

	I can't say that I take this level of care with everything I 
write, but for that line in particular I carefully wrote, re-wrote, 
and re-wrote it again, many times over, before I sent that message.


	I've had a great deal of respect for you over the years, and 
that's why I've been so astonished to see you (of all people) 
defending the likes of AOL on this subject -- they may have still 
been "good guys" when I was working there and when Jay Levitt sent me 
(on two days notice) to the conference where we met for the first 
time, but those times are long since gone, and AOL has been a creator 
of their own evil empire for quite a while.

	Yes, there are some people there who have a certain degree of 
personal integrity (e.g., Carl Hutzler), but that is in spite of what 
the company has become and not because of it.

	I know too many people who used to work for the company and who 
can go on ad nauseum about the evil things that were done while they 
were around, and ended up being major contributors to their 
ultimately leaving.  I have my own first-hand experience, and I have 
a number of former co-workers who have related their own first-hand 
experience.  There is nothing you or anyone else can say that can 
convince me otherwise.

	Okay, Google and Microsoft may be worse, but that doesn't mean 
that AOL is Snow White.  It's more like they're all different 
flavours of Teflon-coated cookware, and while some may be somewhat 
worse than others, they're all major sources of carcinogens and 
contribute all other sorts of horrible nastiness to the biosphere -- 
a fact which DuPont knew back in the 1950s and which they contrived 
to hide from the public.


	Given what I know of you and your history, the only conclusion I 
can come to is that maybe you've been paid by AOL or Goodmail as a 
consultant, and therefore you come to this discussion carrying a 
certain amount and type of baggage that prevents you from seeing the 
forest for the trees that you helped to plant.

	I'm not assuming malice here where I can clearly see other 
factors that are much more likely reasons for your apparent 
behaviour, but that doesn't change the perception of what it is that 
I'm seeing.


	Please, give me something I can hold onto to show that you 
haven't sold us all out.  Right now, I'm not seeing anything, but I'd 
love to be proved wrong.

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad at stop.mail-abuse.org>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

     -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
     Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

  LOPSA member since December 2005.  See <http://www.lopsa.org/>.