Re: Commercial postings on ecos-discuss etc

[Jonathan Larmour <jifl at jifvik dot org>]

On 27/02/10 14:43, Alex Schuilenburg wrote:
> Dear Maintainers,
> 
> I am made unclear about the policy of the maintainers to commercial
> postings to eCos discuss due to the posting yesterday by John Dallaway
> where I believe he is using his maintainer position to post or gather
> information of a commercial nature for his company's benefit. 
> Previously, the guidelines stated that such postings should contain
> [COMMERCIAL] in the subject to alert subscribers to the nature of the
> content.

If they are commercial or contain advertising, yes.

> If this is not a commercial post, unfortunately his posting was not
> clear as to the nature, reasoning and backing of this research.

Does it need to be? If it was like some of those spam telephone calls
one can get where they purport to be "doing a survey" (to get around
telemarketing rules) but actually doing advertising/sales, that would be
one thing. But this contains no insidious promotion, marketing or sales.
It's just a request for people to do a straightforward survey.

> I would
> be most interested to see laid open what development plans the ecos
> maintainers may have for host tool development, as has been strongly
> advocated in the past.

I think we both know that there aren't concrete plans here.

>  I would also enquire as to why the results are
> not being made public for the benefit of the community.

Apparently the results are being made available to those who enter the
survey, which is more than sufficient.

> However, if this is a commercial post, then I would like to ask how the
> policy regarding commercial postings has changed. In addition, if John
> is conducting this survey for the benefit of his company, I would like
> to point out to him and you that I believe the survey does not comply
> fully to either the Companies Act 2006 or the Data Protection Act 1998.

That's not an issue for the maintainers.

> I would also like further clarification regarding netiquette and
> commercial postings on ecos-discuss in this regard.

No mention was made of John's company. There was no advertising, no
promotion, and results were available to those who filled in the survey.

I fully expect John to use the outcome of the survey to guide his
company's actions, but that doesn't make the post commercial IMO.

I'm afraid I really can't see a problem here.

Jifl