[off-topic] Re: A suggestion

[Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I remember, back in 1994, while struggling with several projects to
open the Internet up to the Average Citizen, my collegues were aghast
at my efforts: "Once the covered wagons come in, the next will be their
preachers, school ma'ams and poe-leese" was the most succinct and
poetically clear comment.  

They were, of course, right on the button.  As the great unwashed
masses bounded on to the Internet, we did indeed see Net-Nannies and
government controls, FTP sites arrested for porn, constraints on free
speach and exports of software, and, while most religious 'preachers'
turned out to be a fine bunch of folks, the advertising and marketing
'preachers' continue to be pests to this day.

The moral of this story is, once you go mainstream, you attract all
kinds, and, let's face it, thanks to the fine work of members of this
list, Emacspeak is becoming mainstream.  In opensource terms, it
"scratches an itch" and that is good news for those who want to make
their living supporting it, and for those non-technical blind users
who are eager to get online but cannot afford the traditional
screen-reader box.

I submit that, as geeks, it is easier for us to move than it is for
the newbies to move.  Internet traffic doubles every 100 days, and the
size of the web every 50 days.  Compounding this, Emacspeak is about
to be bundled with the top Linux distribution where the docs clearly
point them here for support. As a result, more and more people are
going to catch the buzz about Emacspeak, and they won't know about the
newbies list or about the dev-only policy of this list.  You can hit
each one with a brick bat as they poke their heads in, but very, very
soon, there will be far too many heads poking too frequently to bop
them all.

I propose a pro-active stance.  I propose abandoning the ground to the
encroaching covered wagons and move technical developer discussions to
higher ground.  It is _effortless_ for those technically proficient to
unsubscribe from one list and to subscribe to another; most of us can
do it in our sleep.

Since Emacspeak is now hosted on SourceForge, and since SourceForge
offers unlimited mailing lists, I propose a new list,
emacspeak-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx, become the exclusive developers'
mailing list, leaving the very obvious, and much publicized,
emacspeak@xxxxxxxxxxx as the first point of contact for _all_
support, technical and otherwise.  Those who do not mind newbie
questions will be free to subscribe to both lists, and those offended
by the unwashed masses can simply unsubscribe from this list and join
the purely technical list.

-- 
Gary Lawrence Murphy <garym@xxxxxxxxxxx>: office voice/fax: 01 519 4222723
T(C)Inc Business Innovations through Open Source http://www.teledyn.com
M:I-3 - Documenting the Linux kernel: http://kernelbook.sourceforge.net
Free Internet for a Free O/S? - http://www.teledyn.com/products/FreeWWW

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