Siju George wrote:
I 've been told by people ( more than one ) off list how *uncivilized* it is to forward *private* mail publicly *even when it has some bad content*.
I wouldn't sweat it too much. It would be one thing to bait him by first promising not to go public with his mail and _later_ taking it public, but it seems unreasonable to expect that an aggressive, unsolicited email will be kept private by the receiver. If someone sends me a crazy-angry email like you received, the first thing I do is get it on the public record. If you don't want to be judged on something you have written unsolicited in anger, then do not send angry, unsolicited email!
Just yesterday Poul-Henning Kamp reposted to soekris-tech select parts of private email replies which I made to him regarding the Hifn debate. He chose to repost only those parts of my messages for which he had snappy answers, failed to disclose the remainder of my messages, and then ended the discussion by implying that I was a communist. In the same sentence he also implied that my world view is uncompromising, while it was obvious that in his own world view he is ultimately right and a difference of values is not possible - disagreeing with him makes you wrong by default. "Discussion over."
The weirdest part is that he was backing up someone who wanted me to take my "rhetoric" off list, so I responded to him in private and then he selectively replied back to the list. Go figure.
It wasn't even worth mentioning until you brought up this somewhat similar situation. Ultimately, people will weigh the facts and decide what they want. Many people will feel that you did nothing wrong, just like many people will read Mr. Kamp's public responses to my private messages and realize that he is not presenting the whole picture. I'm sorry that some people convinced you to back down on your position, but for what it's worth I thought you did the right thing by posting the Cohen reply. I actually felt that your original message was too strongly worded and that Cohen had good reason to be angry, but, "on [Cohen's] own account" or otherwise, it was damned unprofessional of him to respond in private as he did. He should have posted a professional message to the list requesting a retraction of the accusation that he was lying, barring contrary evidence of his honesty. It actually ended up reinforcing my perception that they lack a pulse (or maybe a soul) over at Hifn. If this is how a PR rep for the company reacts to unflattering statements, what about the average Joe in their employ? It's no wonder Theo has problems with them.
Breeno
