[svlug] Linux to Politics ratio

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Kristian Erik Hermansen (kristian.hermansen at gmail.com):

> I just wanted to respectfully ask that we try to keep the topic about
> Linux on the mailing list.  Maybe we need to have a separate mailing
> list called svlug-politics perhaps?  I just want to keep focusing on
> my love of Linux, but this damn political junk keeps filling up my
> inbox!

There _is_ a separate mailing list called Volunteers.  Unfortunately,
Paul Reiber told the members of that mailing list that we were not to
discuss the organisation's plans there, and threatened me when I did so.
I believe his imperial directive was that we were allowed only to
discuss things directly with other volunteers, in such a fashion that
there would be no public record.

He seemed particularly concerned that SVLUG's sponsors not see any such
discussions.  It's possible that might have meant specifically Linode,
whose sponsorship agreement he was and is deliberately failing to honour 
and is misrepresenting to the public (and our own membership) on our
sponsor Web page.

http://lists.svlug.org/archives/volunteers/2007q4/000453.html
http://lists.svlug.org/archives/volunteers/2007q4/000460.html
http://lists.svlug.org/archives/volunteers/2007q4/000462.html

As it happens, an employee of Linode volunteered to me they'd already
noticed that we weren't honouring our end of the bargain, but, he
commented, "Reiber's administration can't last forever".  I apologised on
behalf of the group, and asked that they please not blame Lisa Coresetti
and Micah Dowty, who'd negotiated the sponsorship, and did so in good
faith.  He said they would not.