Well! that was some response!! ;) As the moderator, and as a member of ILUG-CAL here is my Rs. 0.02... ILUG-Cal list is not a place to bash up Microsoft, unless it is backed up firmly by facts. I agree that we need to dispel any FUD against Linux being spread by the MSFT spin doctors. But the right way to do that is counter with hard-facts and not counter-FUD. If Free and open Source S/w can lay a claim on anything, it is its sense of ethics (an idea foreign to MSFT). Using a blanket ban against MSFT in messages, is not a particularly wise decision in my opinion (This is not to be read as my intention to dictate any member's personal choice in the matter)....what if we happen to mention MSFT in context of Linux-NT interoperability, or while discussing SAMBA etc. etc. Hence, in my opinion any such action is rather myopic and counter-productive on the long run (had it been otherwise, I could easily have set up the taboo_headers and taboo_body setting for majordomo). Humor is always welcome. The biggest problem in today's society is perhaps that of people taking themselves too seriously for their own good. But we have to keep in mind our audience or the forum we are using, when sharing a joke ... a joke that goes down well in an adda, may not be the appropriate one to share while you are speaking at a seminar. When I objected to Inigo's post on that spoof on Gates' son and MSFT products, I wanted to drive home this very distinction. We, Linux users, often joke about our ourselves. Right after our last meeting I sent out a spoof on similarity between Linux users and religious communities written by me in a moment of idleness, to some of you. It was a light-hearted look at ourselves...however, had that piece appeared on the mailing list of die-hard Windows users, it would have stood for a different shade of meaning. Similarly, a MSFT joke appearing in a LUG mailing list bears a different connotation....and so we have to tread carefully. Linux advocacy doesn't necessarily mean bashing Microsoft. I remember once speaking to a group of people about Linux. They were interested to know more about it. We were largely discussing about the use of Linux in the enterprise situations which has traditionally being the domain of commercial Unices or NT. Obviously we can down to the percieved (and to a degree practical) problem of packaged products for Linux, the lack of third party developers, the ISVs in Linux. Somewhere down the line I must have said something, that one of the people present told me..."Look, you don't have to be defensive about Linux...its a great product...and its improving faster by the day....obviously it will take some more time to be accepted in the enterprise on a large-scale, coz, you need apps for that, you need solutions that can be upscaled with ease along with your growing business requirements" I stopped for a moment to think about what he said, and I realised that I was going on defensive, and that I reckoned was bad advocacy. Cheers, --Indra. -- To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the body "unsubscribe ilug-cal" and an empty subject line. FAQ: http://www.ilug-cal.org/faq/listfaq.html
