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Re: sarge and software patents



Geoff Thurman wrote:

>But isn't he right, at the end of the day, to be concerned about
>software patents?
>
Yes.

>And I would have thought this list was exactly the
>right place for a discussion of these issues.
>
Not so much, no. A better place would be debian-legal
(http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/).

> Why is it not?
>  
>
Because this list is for "Support for Debian users who speak English"
(http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/). Political issues are not really
support issues.

The general consensus has been that short-lived off-topic threads are
acceptable as long as they don't stray too far from the interests of the
list members (and they should be marked "OT" in the subject line).
Guillaume's original posting was probably considered by most members as
perfectly acceptable, even raising our conciousness of the issue. But
when no one responded, he went semi-ballistic, and now the whole thread
has just become, for lack of a better term, "trollish". His lack of
grammar/spelling didn't help (see recent "Hackers, Spelling, and
Grammar?" link on Slashdot
(http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/30/1532238&tid=215&tid=4)
for relevant discussion)).

Again, the occasional off-topic side discussion about software patents
is probably perfectly acceptable on this list (although it more better
belongs on debian-legal), Guillaume just needs to learn "how to win
friends and influence people" rather than bullying them into his way of
thinking.

-- 
Kent



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