I hesitate to respond for various reasons, one of which being that my last "contribution" here (on a different subject) was rightly seen as unadulterated drivel. Still: I have to say that I'm sympathetic with David Krider's POV. I read some of the more substantive of OT messages here with great interest. To his rather rhetorical question
What's the harm in having a few more messages if someone wants to talk about Red Hat or Microsoft?
my answer is "none". However, in the end I disagree with David, because it's unlikely that talk about RH or M$ would mean "a few more messages". These are the subjects on which a lot of people like to have their two cents'. There'd likely be a *lot* more messages, a small percentage of them of much interest and an even smaller percentage of much use. I'm sure I'm not alone in finding the current number of messages on this list overwhelming as it is. Though there's an awful lot of drivel on Slashdot and although the second or third utterance of this or that jocular remark all too often is modded up as "funny" (etc.), I think that all in all it works rather well for this kind of subject. Rather than having the content all tumble into the mailbox, one may choose whether or not to look at a new issue page, and whether to keep pressing on the PgDn key or go elsewhere. OTOH there could be an opportunity for a "SuSE-in-wider-perspective" list. Oh and incidentally,
Whenever these sorts of threads rear their heads on this list, people get apoplectic, and tell the posters to go to the OT list.
I see very little apoplexy: those who object do so curtly but coolly.