-----Original Message-----
From: David Krider
I like to talk about SuSE's marketing, product strategy, competitive position, and the like. To be specific, I _like_ comparing SuSE to Red Hat, Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, and whatever else is out there. I like to do it from a SuSE point of view, because that's what I've settled on. But I realize that the Linux market changes rapidly and significantly. (Witness Red Hat in the last 7 months.) I don't take for granted that I'll be running SuSE forever, and I want to be able to hear about other people's experiences with other software that SuSE doesn't include, AND other distros.
Whenever these sorts of threads rear their heads on this list, people get apoplectic, and tell the posters to go to the OT list. Well, I did, for several months, and I found the list to be tiresomely immature. The list is made up of all the hard-core pro-SuSE folks that got told to take it elsewhere, and they wind up talking about... ANYthing. I guess some people will interpret "OT" that way, but I just expected "suse-ot" to still at least be *tangentially* related to... SuSE! What a concept!
It seems that there is NO place for the discussions I want to have, and I think this is a disservice to the SuSE community. The Red Hat lists were fantastic. Many Red Hat people were active, and many more trolled. I see ckm all the time here, but he's apparently the SuSE liason for the list, because he's the only one (who at least posts from a suse.com account). The Red Hat folks weren't afraid of an honest look at the issues, and I think that's what made the list more effective. It kept the veterans around because they weren't getting bored with just a list of problems.
I wish this list would grow up. It's a high-volume list. What's the harm in having a few more messages if someone wants to talk about Red Hat or Microsoft? But, no. Within a few posts, everyone is told to take it to the OT list. Unfortunately, the discussions of these sorts of topics on that list were of little value because no one espoused a different point of view. It was just cheering for the home team. There's also an inordinate amount of chatter that boils down to reposts of Slashdot and memepool. Unfortunately, my request to keep *that* list at least related to Linux, if not SuSE, was met with flames.
So what's the bottom line here? Are the self-appointed moderators on this list telling me to talk about SuSE's strategy and positioning over on the Debian and Red Hat lists? Because there sure doesn't seem to be a worthwhile venue being offered by suse.com. Either some people need to "get over it" on this list, or we need, simply, ot@suse.com, and to split non-Linux traffic from the suse-ot list.
Regards all, dk
This list is here to help people that are having problems with their SuSE installation period. It is NOT here to listen about redhat and other distros and what they are doing. That is why the OT list was created, to cut down on traffic generated by OT posts. There are quite a few people on this list that use metered dial up accounts and the amount of OT traffic was a burdon to them, costing them more money for no more additional help. Now I suppose that if you were willing to help pay for their additional costs they may now care as much about the additional cost of downloading additional email that does not pertain to the topic of the list. People that have been using linux/unix for a long time and settled on SuSE because it is a great stable distro were getting tired of all of the of topic traffic as well which is also why the OT list was created. I was getting ready to end my subscription about the time that the OT list was created and decided to stay since the volume of traffic dropped a lot. I not only like to keep an eye on what is happening with different package updates but also what breaks when a package is updated. Even though I have been involved in linux since 1994 and unix since 1989 I still learn something new all the time. li/u(nix) is to large to learn it all in one day,week,year etc. and this list provides a way to learn more. That is why you need to keep the OT stuff on the OT list. Ken Schneider Linux user since 1994 SuSE user since 1998 unix user since 1989