Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!wuarchive!husc6!popvax!kovar
From: kovar@popvax.harvard.edu (David C. Kovar)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Red Ryder 11.0 Announcement
Keywords: white knight
Message-ID: <2943@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 23 Oct 89 21:20:16 GMT
References: <4380@yunexus.UUCP> <31019@news.Think.COM> <987@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM>
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Reply-To: kovar@popvax.UUCP (David C. Kovar)
Organization: Health Sciences Computing Facility, Harvard University
Lines: 47

In article <987@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM> ngg@bridge2.3Com.com (Norman Goodger) writes:
-In article <31019@news.Think.COM> barmar@kulla (Barry Margolin) writes:
--
--Hmm, this is at least the THIRD posting of the White Knight 11.0
--announcement I've seen.
--Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp.
-
-I had intended to post it a couple more times to allow those that may
-have missed it the first time around to catch the posting. However as
-you indicated it has made the rounds about 3 times now in less than
-a week here. So I will wait a couple weeks before posting the annoncement
-again. I don't want to re-post it to be a pain or use net bandwidth, just
-to make sure that the largest number of users can locate and read the
-information and upgrade if they wish to. Because I think its safe to 
-assume that not everyone reads this group all the time and may have
-missed the posting...

  You specifically stated in the top of the long article that we would
only see this message once. I'm of the opinion that even that once didn't
follow net standards. I'm definitely of the opinion that more than once
violates net & social standards.

  Red Ryder is commercial software and you require people to register that
software. If you keep all those registration cards, you have a list of many
of the people who might want to upgrade. Send mail to those people. Or,
maybe, send ONE message to the entire network. Anything more than that
is blatantly using a free service for commerical purposes.

  Even if everyone doesn't read this group all the time, most sites keep
articles around for one or two weeks. The majority of the people reading
the net probably log in within that cut off.

  Yes, I could use the "k" or "n" keys, and have. But this goes beyond
that issue, I believe.

  For the record, I'm still using a copy of the pre-commercial RedRyder
and am quite happy with it. I've seen the later versions and I believe that
it is a good product. That still doesn't justify abusing the net.


-David C. Kovar
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"It is easier to get forgiveness than permission."