At 12:59 PM -0400 8/1/02, J C Lawrence is rumored to have typed:
> GMane, mail-archive.com etc offer an
> extremely useful service for a great many lists which do not have
> external archiver/exploder policies (mail-archive for instance is my
> preferred tool for search the Linux Kernel and BugTraq lists).
I respectfully disagree. ANY archiver which allows "subscription requests" to be
sent by anyone, without the express permission of the list owner, is engaged in theft.
> Heck, I know of more than a few lists which subscribed themselves to
> mail-archive when they first started, just so they'd have an effective
> searchable web archive.
Which is fine and dandy, since we must assume that the list owners are giving
express permission in that instance. You misunderstand my complaints about such
services; if you want to set up a web-based archive, or a mail-to-news gateway, of any
of your lists, you are welcomed to do so either using software you control or
third-parties like these. You may make the archives public or private, and do whatever
else you'd like to do with them, including printing them out and droping them from an
office building if that's your choice (with the possible littering charges ignored for
the sake of the argument).
If, on the other hand, as is certainly true of both mail-archive.com and gmane.org,
YOU can subscribe their archiver/gateway to MY lists, they haven't _any_ permission
from me (expressed or implied), and are engaged in simple theft of intellectual
property - both the author's AND the list owners' (for compilation lists like digests)
copyrights are being violated.
And THAT'S where I have a serious problem with these "services."
Charlie
