a point on mailing list policy

[bruce@Pixar.com (Bruce Perens)]

Someone asked me this in personal mail, and I thought it might bear
repeating here:

> Somehow the juxtaposition of your message body and the first line of 
> your .sig (a campaigner against censorship) struck me as ironic.  

It isn't really. I'm not censoring his message, I'm denying him my
"publication" (the debian-user mailing list) as a forum for it. He is
free to post to the appropriate forum, and won't get any interference
from me.

As publisher, I make the editorial rule that there are not to be
off-topic messages or advertising that isn't paid for. There is real
expense in distributing a list with 700 subscribers like debian-user.
I'm not obligated to spend my own money to publish every message that
is presented to my list server. However, I am ethically bound to defend
whats-his-name if the government decides that he shouldn't be making
that same posting to _any_ forum on the net.

	Thanks

	Bruce
--
Bruce Perens <Bruce@Pixar.com> A campaigner for Clinton and against Censorship.
Toy Story: $183M and counting. At $184M it will beat the #1 movie of 1995.