What's appropriate? (was Re: ANNOUNCE: Building C/C++ Extensions for Python)

[Anton Vredegoor]

On 21 Oct 2002 18:54:14 -0400, aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) wrote:

>In article <ap1kbu$j8b$1 at news.hccnet.nl>,
>Anton Vredegoor <anton at vredegoor.doge.nl> wrote:
>>On Mon, 21 Oct 2002 11:09:53 +1000, "Gerald Squelart"
>><squelart at hotmail.nospam.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>After a couple of email exchanges with Eric, it seems I was wrong to
>>>assume that commercial posts were unwelcome in this newsgroup.  Please
>>>accept my apologies for my inappropriate behaviour.
>>
>>It was not inappropriate at all. Not at all ... This is a public
>>newsgroup, not moderated or owned by anyone. If someone knows otherwise
>>please inform me immediately because it would be time for me to leave.
>
>Geeze, does it have to be either/or?  Do you think that all behaviors
>are appropriate in public places?

For me the first consideration is that a group is open to everyone.
After that there can be some discussion about what's appropriate, but
if that would lead to some opinions being repressed you win on group
cohesion in the short term but loose on information content in the
long term. 

Maybe it would be better to make distinctions based on the merits of
each case separately. In my country government has gone to great
lengths providing equal opportunities to education for everyone but
this is eroding a bit lately because universities can't compete
budgetwise with the large companies that buy out researchers before
they get a chance to add new knowledge to the public domain. 

Companies seem to be more interested in knowledge that is directly
applicable and not so much in purely theoretic science. Theoretic
science can be of great value for humanity but it works best if the
individual scientists are not directly paid by companies.

I hate to see people being described as scientists who are not
displaying a sincere and lasting interest in teaching everyone who
wants to learn. With sincere I also mean not creating barriers,
financially or otherwise.

On the other hand I do not see any advantage in trying to remove
different opinions, as I stated in the first part of my reply.

I hope it's a bit more colorfull now instead of the either/or
alternatives you asked about.

Anton.