LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Alan Kennington <akenning@topology.org>
  To  : Bruce Moffatt <bmoffatt@picknowl.com.au>
  Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2001 18:19:43 +0930

Re: MS (temporarily) off the hook - laughs on way to bank!

On Sat, Jun 30, 2001 at 05:54:30PM +0930, Bruce Moffatt wrote:
> On Saturday 30 June 2001 17:31, Brian Astill wrote:
> > On Fri, 29 Jun 2001, Alan Kennington wrote:
> > > The idea is:
> > > -	Every PC shop in SA is given an A4 sheet of paper
> > > 	with instructions on how to join a mailing
> > > 	list called, say, linux-start-SA, or something
> > > 	to that effect.
> > > -	We set up a new mailing list with the purpose of
> > > 	getting people just basically started.
> >
> > You are looking at LinuxSA-questions (a la FreeBSD-questions), I think.
> 
> 
> ...or are we looking at LinxSA plus a heavy hand of tolerance??? My 
> experience of split lists is that the 'cadet' list gets damn all relevant 
> traffic and the 'older sibling' list gets lots of flick passes to the 'cadet' 
> list that somehow never get there...
> 
> Can I very respectfully suggest that this list works very well as is, and as 
> with life beyond the list there will always be room for more tolerance and 
> inclusiveness? Good will is probably the only mandatory requirement for 
> list-joining IMVHO.


But... suppose we sent a circular round to all the PC shops in
Adelaide giving instructions on how linux beginners can sign up to
the linuxSA list, and suppose that brought in 200 new beginners
each month, would that be something that we could cope with?
I've already seen the posting rate on linuxSA go up hugely
in the years since I joined it - which I think was near
its time of inception.

On the good side, that would mean 2400 more saved souls per year.
Ultimately that would benefit us all by increasing the user base
and ensuring the continued viability of the True Faith.
But it would also mean having a lot of people posting messages
like "I started installing linux, but it doesn't work. Please help."
At the same time there will be other people wanting to discuss
fine tuning of the latest kernel.
Maybe this is already happening, but a serious proselytising effort
could lead to pressure for the creation of a
linuxSA-experts-only mailing list.

This has all ben discussed a zillion times before, of course.
I'm not suggesting any new solutions. People have already
suggested enforcing title categories a few times, like
putting [NEWBIE] at the beginning of subject lines to
support filtering. But some newbie questions end up becoming
quite "advanced", whereas some apparently "advanced" questions
can end up in "elementary" issues.

I think that Matthew Tippett was always in favour of
keeping a unified list.

===========================================================
The question still remains as to whether it would be a good idea
or a bad idea to suggest to 100 PC shops in SA that linux
beginners could register with the linuxSA list to get started.

Cheers,
Alan Kennington.

PS. As a result of the article on MS fears linked at slashdot
a day or two ago:
http://noframes.linuxjournal.com/articles/currents/0032.html
I'm now intending to convert all of my free software
over from Artistic Licence to LGPL or GPL.
I can see now, that MS's strategy is to buy up all of their
potential opposition (e.g. see
http://www.isometry.com/amicusbr2.pdf ),
and that GPL is a threat to them in the sense that it prevents
them from acquiring other people's IP.
Their swallow-the-opposition tactic doesn't work when
they swallow a "virus".
Since the US govt is impotent against capitalist monopolies,
it's up to the little people to deal with the monster themselves.



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