> At 10:49 PM 9/7/97 -0500, Jim Crawford wrote:
> >Linux is free, and I believe so is Gauntlet...and I believe a host
> of other
> >secure firewalls if price is a conern.
>
[snip]
> Tasteless or hameless plugs will become more common on lists like
> this. I am against them, but believe they will become more common
> because:
>
> - small companies who used to only have technical people now
> are bigger and few have policies on this stuff
Uh, there is a built-in assumption, which is that technical people have been
on the net for years, but not marketing people. I am a marketing-type. Been
on the net since 1983. First got involved with TCP/IP products in 1987. I
*lived* through the Robert Tappan Morris meltdown in 1989. Can every
"technical" person using the net today claim as much familiarity?
>
> - the average person using the Internet, who is with (even President
> of) a company having something to do with business on the
> Internet
> didn't know what the Internet was 2 years ago (I'm probably
> exaggerating.
My point, only you made it.
>
> - that person therefore probably has no idea of the rules, nor
> the vastness of some news groups (which is why every group with
> tens of thousands of posters still sees e-mail like "This
> has nothing to do with the subject of this list, but can someone
> tell me the best place to get sushi in Portland?").
Yeah, but I think it is roughly parallel to the rise of sensationalism in the
press and TV. Unfortunately, as Pogo (remember him?) used to say, "We have
met the enemy, and it is us." SPAM is an issue, and unfortunately it is here
to stay because of the way that Internet access is priced. Nothing less than
"sender pays postage" will change that, on this group or any other. >
> On the issue of plugs, one of the problems from the other side is
> that people;s definitions and sensitivities are so very different. I
> think posting a 1 or 2 line message (as I have done in the past)
> saying "We just announced a new version of XYZ. See
> www.zyx.com/something for details" is usually considered acceptable.
Yeah. I remember those also, I actually used to look at them. Those were
simply more discreet days. But they're gone, like it or not. (I don't, but
...)
As they used to say in those days, flames to /dev/null.
>
> Fred
>
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