Rick Faircloth wrote: > > Why is protecting your "work" (personally, I wouldn't > classify answering questions people post to this list as "work") > in an absolutely unchanged state so important to you?
The imperative is not "work" but "original work" because that is a key concept in copyright law. Also, it doesn't have to be absolutely unchanged. I don't have a problem with reformatting or representing in an indented thread. I would for instance even welcome the archives reflowing messages as per RFC 3676. But if I write something on a subject and recommend vendor X, I consider it a substantial change if suddenly every occurence of <subject> were to be linked to vendor Y. A vendor which I may not know or worse, have bad experiences with. > And, personally, (and I know the law is probably against me > on this one), I think that once a person responds to a public list > that is owned and operated by someone else, the response you > make should become part of the "public domain"...no longer > personal, private property. The law is not entirely against you, but you don't forfeit all rights*. Sending a message to a public mailinglist pretty much means you give people the right to use that message. But that does not include the right to substantially alter the message while still representing it as being written by me. If you do that by accident over the list now you get an offlist request to be more carefull. Jochem *Some IETF mailinglists I am on have you agree to another clause when you sign up that does make it official that you forfeit pretty much all rights, which does make sense when you are discussing future standards that need to be without strings for implementers. But that is something you agree to beforehand. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Discover CFTicket - The leading ColdFusion Help Desk and Trouble Ticket application http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=48 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:203691 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54