Xref: utzoo comp.unix.internals:110 news.groups:23508 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!world!bzs From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals,news.groups Subject: Re: c.u.wizards vs. c.u.internals Message-ID: Date: 6 Sep 90 19:35:50 GMT References: <34639@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <18530@rpp386.cactus.org> <26E4EC42.42AB@tct.uucp> <18533@rpp386.cactus.org> Sender: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Followup-To: comp.unix.wizards Organization: The World Lines: 60 In-Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org's message of 6 Sep 90 13:21:26 GMT From: jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) >Well, I'm tending to agree with Doug Gwyn. Doug's statement was >that he wouldn't be able to discuss UNIX internals because his >license prohibited him from doing so. Since I don't have a copy >of the non-disclosure agreements I signed with AT&T and IBM, I >think I too will have to bow out. > >This voting business is really beginning to look pretty silly. >What we really need is a good backbone cabal. I tend to agree also. What we need is something akin to a *constitution*, some set of basic rules/rights which no vote can violate (except a vote to change the constitution, which should be made difficult tho not impossible.) There also might be room for "special interest" votes, where the groups in question are recognized as being special interest enough that somehow the voting should be limited to interested parties (think of it like the difference between "state's rights" and "federal rights", the inherent problem of California being allowed to vote on how Wyoming spends their internal revenues, eg., I know, it happens, again, just an analogy.) One might, in this example, have compiled a list of contributors to c.u.w (perhaps some other groups, c.u.q) and restricted the vote to them. The fear being, members of another special interest "stuffing the ballot boxes" in a destructive way, perhaps not even totally maliciously, just misguided. Or even maliciously, or so self-interested as to make a mockery of the process (some large company voting against the creation of a group for a small competitor, e.g.) I think we are quite vulnerable to all these problems. I'd sum up at least some of these particular voting results to be: A group which was created to allow experts to chit-chat amongst themselves has now been re-structured with the hidden agenda to try to turn them into free consultants. One should be able to see the conflict of interest here, the vast majority would of course vote to "enslave" (again, I exaggerate) the relatively few experts. Why not? Why was it important at all to remove c.u.w? Why not just create some magnet groups so wizards can have some peace to speak about relatively wizardly matters? Was it to make sure that wizards had nowhere else to go??? -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | {xylogics,uunet}!world!bzs | bzs@world.std.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD