Re: mailinglist quarrels

[Christopher Hicks <chicks@chicks.net>]

On Tue, 21 Sep 2004, Remco Post wrote:
> Quanah Gibson-Mount wrote:
>
> > The problem you are having has everything to do with Microsoft & MS 
> > Outlook.  You were pointed at the correct resource for your problem 
>
> Of course, interoperability is a hard issue to debug. Which program is 
> at fault is hard to determine.

I bow down the wisdom of Renco!  All hail Renco!  ;)

> So a 'interoperability' discussion seems to be at least partly on-topic 
> to this list in the sense that OpenLDAP as a server tool is worthless 
> without clients (all of which are developed outside the OpenLDAP scope). 
> So to be calling these discussions off-topic seems a bit drastic to me.

Very drastic.

> Now having said that, two things could be done, one is to set-up a 
> second mailinglist discussing interoperability. The other is to accept 
> that interoperability issues are an integral part of the problems admins 
> encounter when trying to use the OpenLDAP software and open this list to 
> these discussions.

I've agreed to set up an openldap interoperability mailing list if the 
openldap projects doesn't come to its senses in the next week or two.  It 
seems truly bizarre to me that Kurt is smart enough to write software, but 
feels its a better use of his time to kick people off his mailing list 
than to setup a list where these topics wouldn't be verboden.  Let's 
calculate, a hundred "go bugger off" emails at 2 minutes/email takes a bit 
over three hours.  Could Kurt setup a mailing list in less than three 
hours?  I suspect most of us could setup a mailing list in that time even 
if we didn't have mailing list software already installed.  And people are 
questioning my intelligence and calling ME clueless?  (Folks have done 
both in private emails caused by this sadly.)

> > several times, and yet you insisted on repeatedly posting to the list, and 
> > then heaping "verbal" abuse on the list maintainer.
>
> I must say, verbal abuse of people who probably spend a lot of their 
> free time on helping us with our problems is not very motivating.

I didn't verbally abuse anybody.  If disagreement equates to abuse for you 
(the geneal you whoever you are), might I point out that you may need real 
help?

> I must add that 'use the source' and 'go look for your answer elswhere' 
> type of answers are a bit to common on this list for my liking.

I got two of these things within the first 24 hours of being on this 
mailing list.  Its really disgusting.

> But I do get usefull responses from this list as well, and appriciate 
> that.

I'm glad to see that all useful discussion hasn't been stamped out.  The 
mailing list archives do indicate a less fascist management historically.

[ For those of you still interested in the Outlook scenario we've decided 
to setup AD and see if we can get Outlook groups to work with that. 
Whatever the difference is we'll document it and get it out the world 
somehow! ]

--
</chris>

There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make 
it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way 
is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
 -- C.A.R. Hoare