[Dundee] LUG submissions from Mars - Open Letter

[dundee@lists.lug.org.uk]

Dear all

I was horrified when I opened my e-mail client and found bandwidth hogged by 
e-mails that I had not requested.  Yes you all know the feeling SPAM had 
arrived in my box.  Was it trying to sell me something?  Was it trying to con 
me?  No! it was trying to inform me on a subject which is close to my heart.

LINUX

Whilst it is superficially a good idea to disseminate knowledge, you have to 
be a willing party to this sharing or it becomes an infringement.

Let me try to explain.

Let us assume that it is felt by the democratic majority that it is a good 
idea to get digests from other LUG's.  It appears we have Aberdeen, what 
next, Falkirk, Scottish, Edinburgh.  Is that enough, what about the rest in 
Scotland, what about England, the UK, Europe, The WORLD ?

What then as we drown in information and have to spend all day down loading 
the latest epistle from Abu Dhabi ?

But I digress.

In order for something to be of benefit you have to give the people in 
receipt of this benefit the choice.  What choice do we have, when the next 
digest from The Mars Linux User Group drops through our open e-mail letter 
boxes.

Can you refuse it, yes of course, but that requires work, and eventually the 
deny file gets so big it gets ugly, I don't like ugly, which is kinda ironic.

So you follow a link to unsubscribe, only to find out that you are not 
actually a member. So what next. There is only one course of action, 
unsubscribe from the LUG that you joined in the first place. 

I don't like the options.

It funny that this situation is here as it reminds me very much of a recent 
court case, where people had to use a certain browser because they used a 
certain OS. Does this mean that we have to get all news because we wan't 
local news and MEETINGS (Dundee or Perth).

Don't let us ANTI-TRUST you Dundee, find some way of offering a choice to 
receive these digests so they become a benefit rather than an infringement.

Regards

Steven


-- 


Steven A. McIntosh
Learn-and-Pass
27 Glenfarg Terrace
Perth
Perthshire
PH2 0AP
Tel / Fax : +44 (0)1738 561 023
E-mail: steven@learn-and-pass.com
Web: www.learn-and-pass.com