On Tue, Mar 12, 2002 at 09:41:52PM -0800, Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote: > Branden Robinson <branden@deadbeast.net> writes: > > > There is no notice of any confidentiality in the message(s) you > > cite. Furthermore, even if there were, the Debian Project was and > > is not party to any such agreements. > > In the present case, the emails were sent by eemuconcept.com to a > particular individual, who chose to republish them onto the Debian > list. That may have been an illegal copy, and if eemuconcept says to > remove them, we should comply. They didn't post them here. So far I have seen no convincing evidence that: A) the content of the emails in question actually "belongs" to eemuconcept; all I can see are the representations of the person who posted the material (over a year ago), which could be false. Oh, wait, I read it on the Internet, so it must be true, right? B) that the person mailing us to complain has standing to request the removal of the materials, or has anything to do with the complaining organization (I can change my From: line to say branden@eemuconcept.com; that doesn't mean it's indicative of anything important); C) that we are required to remove the materials under the laws applicable to whatever jurisdiction may happen to apply; D) that we cannot make a case for a Fair Use exception to any copyright assault that may be launched due to the trivially small amount of text in question. > But, as I said before, that doesn't mean we give in! We can comply, > and still keep a permanent record of their nastiness, and keep all > their email addresses as visible as they are now. You are throwing in the towel way, way too early. Yes, you may want to throw it in with a disgusted snap at the asses of the people harassing us, but it's still acquiescence. Until my four concerns above are addressed I think it's morally irresponsible for us to comply. Debian's mailing lists are its nervous system, and our list archives our collective memory. We should muck with them only with extreme care and caution. Asking for mailing list archives to be redacted is morally equivalent to insisting that (accurate) newspaper copy from the past be altered or removed. Hasn't anybody read _1984_? This person who calls him- or herself "Anna" either has Winston's job, or wants it. -- G. Branden Robinson | A celibate clergy is an especially Debian GNU/Linux | good idea, because it tends to branden@debian.org | suppress any hereditary propensity http://people.debian.org/~branden/ | toward fanaticism. -- Carl Sagan
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