Re: PEAR DB 1.6.0 has been released - now OT if not originally

Daniel Morgan <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> writes:

>>Personally I am pleased to hear about free software related to Oracle
>>and I don't consider it spam for the simple reason that no money is
>>involved.

>I think we have made it abundantly clear that we consider it spam.

You have, and you have been on this group longer than me, and if it turns out I am going against widely-held views then I will shut up, but I can't help noticing that so far you are the only person who has insisted on labelling these open source project announcements as spam, while a few people have disagreed.

>So lets analyze the situation. If you have no profit motive in your
>posting why do you care about which group you post to?

>The fact that you are making a issue out of it mocks your claim of
>being driven by the desire to be generous and a member of our
>community. It clearly indicates your motivation is marketing and PR:
>We call that spam.

People try to post to a relevant group, one where the readers share some common purpose and would be interested to see the message. One must also take account of what a newsgroup's charter says. It's reasonable to think that a database access library including Oracle is related to Oracle, and therefore suitable for this group as stated in the charter.

C'mon, give people some credit. Many readers of this group know that you sometimes undertake paid work relating to Oracle. But we don't start attributing a sinister motive to your postings, that you are really only making them to draw attention to paid Oracle courses. We don't post grumpy follow-ups labelling your articles as spam and saying that if you didn't have some marketing motive you would have posted to a different group. We know that you are posting here because you really do want to help out and contribute to the group, and because your articles are of interest to most people here.

Those posting announcements of free software they have developed for use with Oracle, which they develop without payment, are no more driven by ulterior commercial motives than you or any other poster. There is no need to flame them or lump them in the same category as spammers, their contribution here is just as valuable as any other poster's.

-- 
Ed Avis <ed_at_membled.com>