[Mailman-Users] Mail headers with Mailman

[J C Lawrence]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2001 17:15:19 -0800 
Ed Lazor <osmosis at atfantasy.com> wrote:

> All of it over the fact that I believe in FREEDOM.

At no point has your's or other's freedom been constrained or
curtailed.  You and everyone else remain just as free as you ever
were to edit the sources to make Mailman behave in any manner you
may choose.  Similarly you remain just as free as you ever were to
use your MUAs of choice with mailman lists.  This is a fundamental
definition and behaviour of Open Source.

> That's right.  It's about freedom.  

No, it is about your wish to enforce a choice on the mailman
developers which is in direct violation of both their stated
preferences and concept of technical correctness.  If you truly
consider this configuration option to be that important then you
should, quite correctly, fork Mailman and start your own
distribution version of Mailman which presents that option.

Again, this is a fundamental definition and behaviour of Open
Source.

> Others would suggest it's about forcing others to do what you
> want, because you know what's better for them in the long run.

Its about choice and obligation, and the fact that they are not the
same thing, especially when viewed by different people.

> In other words, we can support the standard and make it as easy as
> flipping a switch when people are ready to use the new features it
> provides.

Instead we consider that by supporting a standard which is on the
standards track and which is both viewed as beneficial and Good Idea
we are encouraging the wide spread adoption and support of that RFC.
Conversely, we consider that by providing an option to turn off
support for that RFC we may potentially slow the rate of adoption of
RFC 2369 due to the fact that there would be little to know impetus
to change -- which would be a Bad Thing.

> In the meanwhile, I haven't once tried to attack anyone directly,
> but I have been.  

This is regretable.  Unfortunately stupidity is not unique to any
nicely isolatable population.

-- 
J C Lawrence                                       claw at kanga.nu
---------(*)                          http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/
--=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--