[apologies in advance for the long post; if you're sick of this thread just go for the 'delete' button ;) ]
ooh, a flamewar! I want in. <puts on flame proof suit> First things first. Seriously, hasn't this thread gone on long enough? This list has a relatively high volume of OT posts these days, and I think Mathew (or anyone else) has every right to object, and those concerned should be considerate and continue the discussion off list. This is, after all, a list for discussion about linux. I don't think it's unreasonable for people signed up to the list to expect the discussion to be mostly about linux. Having said that, if anyone does continue this off list, please CC me ;-) At the risk of being an incredible hypocrite though, I do have a few comments to make though (hey, everyone else is)... so seeing as I'm already posting, I may as well tack them on the bottom of this message - apologies to who will miss the extra kilobyte or two of bandwidth ;-) If you're sick of the spam thread, stop reading here. This'll be my 1 and only on-list post on this topic. <puts extra flame proof suit on> I think Yuri has a good point. Maybe you should read his post again Nick. I think you misinterpreted it. There is a difference between specifically targeted busines-to-business contact, and unselective spamming. The way spam works is by sheer volume; you send advertising for your product to as many people as you possibly can, knowing that 99% of them won't be interested, but counting on the 1% that will be for your business. It's indescriminate. Yes? By comparison, what Jason described was manually selecting businesses who he thought would be interested in doing business, and making individual 1-to-1 contact with those businesses. It's a legitimate use of email; he could have just as easily telephoned each of those businesses, and nobody would think that spam. It's directed and specifc, not indiscriminate bulk emailing. Another point is that the cost to Jason by this method is actually quite high, at least if his time is worth anything. To me, this doesn't resemble spam in any way, shape, or form, other than that they share the same medium (email). I can't see how anyone can even think the two comparable. Although, I do agree, it is *technically* UCE, aka spam (as David pointed out. Unsolicited Commercial Email). It's not the same activity at all though. Spammers email everyone and *anyone* they can, manually, automatically, however. Jason was being selective, and only emailing those he thought would be interested in correspondence and / or doing business (and I bet he didn't fake the "From:" field on his email either ;-) It just happens to be covered by the definition of "UCE", but that's a technicality. Which I think was Jason's original point. Cheers, Gareth
