spf-discuss
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Re: Re: When did we lose control?

2004-10-19 00:52:30

----- Original Message -----
From: "Meng Weng Wong" <mengwong(_at_)dumbo(_dot_)pobox(_dot_)com>
To: <spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2004 1:13 AM
Subject: Re: [spf-discuss] Re: When did we lose control?


The folks who asked me, back in January, to work with
Microsoft to produce a single standard, would have to ask me
to stop.

Instead they have been emailing me directly saying "please
keep going".  They won't say it here, because we seem to
have turned this mailing list into a cross between a
kangaroo court and a witchhunt, but it's what I'm hearing.

Well - according to Philip H-B the decisions are made by his fellow
M$-associated cronies in some back room!  So presumably these are the people
you are listening to instead of the spf community.  Where are these people
on this list?  Are they too scared of their own actions to speak up?  This
smacks of seriously underhand work and is something entirely against the
principles of open source. For someone who lives in a democracy (I think)
you have a seriously flawed perception of how to run a democratic process.

Meng - you simply *must* listen to the spf community.  Decisions made in
smoke-free backrooms are usually bad ones, they lead to controversy, and
they do not represent anything other than vested interests.

If you persist in listening to the M$ voices - the rest of the spf community
will probably turn it's collective back on you.  The fact that you put spf
together in the first place will count for nothing.  You will be seen as
having abandoned the project in favour of your personal interests.

If you see this mail list as a kangaroo court and/or a witch-hunt, ask
yourself why?  What has happened to make the list appear like that to you?
Maybe you will then realize that it has been your own actions that have
promoted this thread.  If you had walked away from M$ at the same time as
MARID folded, none of this would have happened.  We would now have spf1
defined correctly and would probably be already half way to getting spf2
working with *all* the scopes - including one that M$ could use.  As I have
said elsewhere - you have caused spf to stall - and that does not
demonstrate your best interests for the project.  You can still rejoin the
"mainstream" if you like - or are you too embroiled with the machinations of
M$ and it's commercial offshoots to see that?



I think it is important to keep the domain owners in mind
--- those millions of folks who will have to actually do the
dirty work of publishing the records.  Keeping things as
simple as possible for them is, in my view, what will make
all this a success --- not fighting over details that they
will ultimately find irrelevant.

The spf community already represents those domain owners, there are many of
the list members who are themselves such people and who administer such
people.  People in back rooms represent profit for their companies.

Keeping things simple is *exactly* what we are trying to do - it's M$ who
are making things complicated, both technically *and* politically, and they
are using you to do it.  If you stop speaking up for M$ the difference will
be amazing.

No-one here is fighting over potentially irrelevant details, I *really*
don't know what mails you are referring to,  but we *are* fighting to keep
spf in the open source world, and not beholden to patents, licences, or
commercial interests.

Looks like your decision day has arrived - are you with us or are you with
M$?




Kind regards,

John Pinkerton.
johnp(_at_)idimo(_dot_)com
ICQ 313355492