4:56 p.m.
Hi Mark,
Sorry amigos, but I'm a bit confused here:
> Perhaps we should emphasize that these private mailing lists
> are
> not *our* private mailing lists where we schemed and plotted
> our
> sinister coup, [...]
This list (on which we are typing now) is archived and publicly
visible, so I don't think we've ever had a private list at all.
I'm guessing that you're joking about a "sinister coup", but I
worry that it might be misread.
Sorry for not making myself clearer!
I wrote it this way because that is (in all seriousness) the
impression some people seem to be having; mentioning a private
mailing list where discussions have been going on for years would
just embolden those who are convinced this is all some backdoor
office scheming to rise to power.
So I think it is essential that this misconception and the
potential for misunderstanding the mention of gnu-prog-discuss be
taken into account. Clarifying that it was not *us* deciding to
discuss “secret business” in the shadows is, I think, very
important. Someone decided that gnu-prog-discuss should be secret
and discussions on that list hidden from the public. A side
effect is that all internal dissent can be made to disappear
without a trace (not through censorship but by smothering
constructive discourse) — and the public has no way of observing
even the existence of dissent.
--
Ricardo