Mailinglist privacy: MY NAME ALL OVER GOOGLE!

Ted Mittelstaedt tedm at toybox.placo.com
Sat May 7 23:11:48 PDT 2005



> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Alex
> de Kruijff
> Sent: Saturday, May 07, 2005 4:08 PM
> To: Chris Hodgins
> Cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: Mailinglist privacy: MY NAME ALL OVER GOOGLE!
>
>
> On Sat, May 07, 2005 at 04:05:09PM +0100, Chris Hodgins wrote:
> > This keeps coming up time and time again.  Why don't we simply put up
> > a message on the subscription page that says if you subscribe you
> > agree that your messages will be archived for public viewing.  End of
> > story.  No more bitchy emails on this subject, no more heated debates
> > and much more time devoted to talking about FreeBSD.
>

No, Chris, we don't want to do that.  If you put any kind of message like
that
on the website you are then implying that the users have copyrights in
the
first place on postings that they put on the mailing list.

Since what law there is supports the opposite assumption - that the
poster
has no copyright on the post made in this forum - you are far better
legally
by NOT putting such a disclaimer.

It is kind of like if you walk into a restaurant and pick up a fork and
stab yourself, then sue the restaurant claiming that they are negligent
in not warning you that their forks are sharp.  Today you don't see
warning
labels on forks because the law presumes that a fork is supposed to be
sharp,
and it presumes that anyone of legal age to enter a restaurant would know
this.  If restaurants all started slapping warning labels on their forks
then they would create a presumption that a normal fork is dull, and that
the sharp kind is unexpected.

Ted



More information about the freebsd-questions mailing list