Re: VA Linux's Spamming

[djb@redhat.com]

> >I think that sending unsolicited 1 Mb messages to hundreds or thousands 
> >of people is extremely inappropriate.
>
> I agree - this is a really annoying practice - made more so by the 
> lengths these people have gone to (searching thru the docs AND source 
> code for addresses) in order to hawk their product around...
> clever? NO! nasty? OUI!

I'm obviously a bit biased, but let me chime in here.

First, this is not an offer to sell anything to benefit the company.
It is an offer intended to benefit the recipient.  You can call that
spam if you want, but the offer was made in an effort to help YOU,
not the offerer.  The offerer (in this case VA, in the former case
RH) gains nothing monetary by doing this.  VA will sell every single
share they issue at the IPO offering price, period.  VA will net exactly
the same dollar amount from this IPO whether any of you folks who got
that 1M email buy or not.  So how is that spam?  It was done as an
offer to *you*, period.

Yes, a 1M mail was probably not the best choice.  Note that we did
not do that.  But the lawyers for VA probably required it.  They probably
had good reason to.  If I had asked our lawyers they would have probably
made me attach the prospectus in our offering.  But I didn't ask.  :-)

This is a grand gesture on their part, IMNSHO.  You're entitled not to
agree, but I think that's a bit short sighted.


--Donnie

--
  Donnie Barnes    http://www.donniebarnes.com    djb@redhat.com    "Bah."
   Challenge Diversity.  Ignore People.  Live Life.  Use Linux.  879. V. 
    "They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes 
      perfect. I wish they'd make up their minds." -- Wilt Chamberlain



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