Re: Using corporate accounts when posting to Debian mailing lists
Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> writes:
> This is mostly an etiquette question, and I'm not sure if this is the
> right mailing list to post to.
> I've noticed that compared to, say, ten years ago, relatively few
> mailing list posters use corporate accounts (or accounts readily
> attributable to some larger organization). This phenomenon is not
> restricted to Debian mailing lists. If the sender's mailbox looks
> corporate (or the topic of the message involves stuff you usually do
> not run at home), most of the time, no mail signature with extended
> contact information (web, phone, fax) is used.
> I wonder if this is the result of corporate pressure, or if this is
> somehow encouraged by the de-facto list policy.
I suspect it may just be that it's so much easier and so much more common
now for one to have a personal mailbox that people are more inclined to
use it and not have to deal with address changes when they change
employers, or with any weirdness about employer e-mail accounts. There's
also more awareness than there used to be about on-line identity and the
advantages of having a persistant personal identity independent of one's
employer (and the privacy concerns about advertising one's employer to the
world all the time).
Personally, while I use my Debian address for all Debian work, I use my
Stanford University address for everything else on-line, but that's
largely force of habit and a great deal of trust in my employer. Were I
to start from scratch with on-line identity today, I'd use an eyrie.org
address and a separate inbox, just as a matter of best practice. I
wouldn't expect problems, but there's no need to invite possible trouble
if one's relationship with one's employer goes south. Employers are
legally permitted in the US to intercept and read all of an employee's
e-mail sent to a work address, for example.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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