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Re: Thought Police - was C++ to C compiler


Joe Buck wrote:
> 
> Craig Burley writes:
> 
> > Would the GCC Steering Committee please consider blocking this
> > guy (Benjamin Scherrey) from sending further off-topic missives to this
> > list?
> 
> I'm willing to let him have the one flame and get it out of his system.
> Assuming that there aren't more, I would prefer to simply drop the whole
> matter and return to discussing gcc development.  While the SC can ban
> people from the list, and will do so if necessary, it's only happened once
> in the history of EGCS/GCC and I'd rather not have to resort to that.
> 
> I'll only ask people to remember one thing: this list is not a public
> forum where free speech rights apply.  It is the GCC development
> list.  It is the property of the GCC project, which is run by the Steering
> Committee, using resources donated by Cygnus Solutions.  I would expect
> those whose ideology includes respect for property rights to honor that,
> even if good manners isn't sufficient.

Outsider stepping in:

I don't believe that one line of code suggest an commercial solution is
causing all of this fuss.  I don't think that ANYONE flamed anyone on
the list regarding it.  I honestly don't see how suggesting an
alternative for something that gcc could not do is so wrong.  Are we not
allowed to compare GCC to proprietary software on this list?

If you kick him off, who is next?  Nasty moderators kicking people off
who expressed viewpoints they did not like sounds a HELL of a lot like
old FidoNet forms where ordinarily nice users which made the mistake of
expression a view on the list that was not shared by the community got
banned from the list.  The moderators used the excuse that they "won't
following the rules" when really they hated the guy and just did not
want to here from him again.  Here is how it typical went:

1) Foo posted a flashy announsment if interest to the users to the list
(also ontopic and something I would not consider spam). (strike 1)
2) Moderator asked him to stop.  He replied publicly. (strike 2)
3) Moderator told him by replying publicly he broke another rule without
addressing his original concerns.  He once again challenged this
publicly (strike 3)
4) Moderator kicked him off the lis with out saying anything else.

So basically Foo loses for simply expressing his opinion.  Although some
people may like this type of system, I don't.   Do you really want the
gcc list to become like this?  Once again please don't start doing this
as doing so would make you no better than those nasty BBS moderators.

-- 
Kevin Atkinson
kevinatk@home.com
http://metalab.unc.edu/kevina/


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