On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 11:40:50AM -0800, Steve Lamb wrote:
> Russell King wrote:
> > What it comes down to is not personal preference, but the policies of
> > the list itself. If the list can be posted to by third parties,
> > dropping people from CC: is most definitely the wrong thing to do.
>
> No. The question of whether or not they can post to a list without being
> subscribed is not the one to be asked. The one to be asked is can they *READ*
> the list without being subscribed. If the answer is yes then the onus is on
> them to make the effort to do so.
That shows a nice lack of understanding of the problem (see below.)
> Of course that is also a trick question. Why? How, exactly, would they
> know where to send if they weren't also reading in the first place? :P
By reading a web page and finding an address to report bugs to. For
example, see the kerberos lists and web pages at MIT, particlarly the
kerberos bug reporting list.
http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/www/mail-lists.html
It is _all_ about whether people need to be subscribed to post, not
whether they read the list.
Here's a practical example. You're a user of some piece of software.
There is a developers mailing list for this software, and it's high
volume with maybe 400 messages a day. You don't want your mail box
filled with 400 irrelevant messages per day, yet you want to report
a bug to the list and receive the resolution.
Now, consider the consequences if you do not CC: the bug reporter.
Will you know if your proposed fix actually had the desired effect?
--
Russell King
Linux kernel 2.6 ARM Linux - http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/
maintainer of: 2.6 PCMCIA - http://pcmcia.arm.linux.org.uk/
2.6 Serial core
