Xref: utzoo news.admin:6408 gnu.misc.discuss:41 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!uunet!ncis.tis.llnl.gov!mcb From: mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) Newsgroups: news.admin,gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: Changes to Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies Message-ID: <330@ncis.tis.llnl.gov> Date: 28 Jul 89 17:43:53 GMT References: <323@ncis.tis.llnl.gov> <8427@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> <325@ncis.tis.llnl.gov> Organization: Postmodern Consulting, Pleasanton CA USA Lines: 40 In article tale@pawl.rpi.edu writes: > In <325@ncis.tis.llnl.gov> mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) writes: > MCB> Precisely so. I have no objection to a complete bar of politics and > MCB> philosophy from the gnu technical groups. But the charter as > MCB> previously quoted doesn't say "No politics in the gnu groups"; it > MCB> says, in effect, "No politics except OUR politics in the gnu groups", > MCB> and that is not acceptable on a publicly subsidized network. > > This has got be at least the fifth statement I have seen to this > effect and it is completely wrong. I have reread the charter for > gnu.misc.discuss a few times to see if perhaps I was missing something > in it but I still do not see where it says anywhere, implicitly or > explicitly, that only the viewpoints of the FSF will be tolerated in > gnu.misc.discuss. You didn't begin reading at the beginning at the thread. This has nothing to do with the charter for gnu.misc.discuss, but rather the change to the document "Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies" that is periodically posted along with the half-dozen other guides to Usenet. I am informed that the addtional sentence was written by either Len Tower or Richard Stallman. It was quoted in my original article and I will re-quote it below, since others seem to have overlooked this as well: [From Usenet document "Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies":] > operating system with freely redistributable source code. The GNU > ! Project is led by Richard Stallman. Note that use of these groups to > ! discuss topics considered contrary to GNU aims and political > ! philosophy are considered off-limits (e.g., porting of GNU code to > ! Apple machines, usefulness of intellectual property laws). In other words, it is all right for RMS and others to post political messages about the Apple boycott and against intellectual property law, and other things in line with FSF/GNU "aims and political philosophy", but contrary views (porting GNU to Apples, opinions in favor of intellectual property law) are "off-limits". -- Michael C. Berch mcb@tis.llnl.gov / uunet!tis.llnl.gov!mcb