To: <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: Re: stdio.h: broken standard compliance.
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Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:58:50 -0700
From: Kaz Kylheku <kaz AT kylheku DOT com>
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Christopher Faylor writes:

> The convention in this mailing list is that you read the mailing list.

Hi Christopher,

I see now from the archives that this list is configured
to generate the unfortunate Reply-to header, which by many
is considered a mailing list misconfiguration.

[[ Apologies to Corinna: I understand now that you fell
victim to this Reply-to trap! Argh! ]]

In other respects, this is a completely ordinary mailing
list, like countless ones that came before it.

How mailing lists work is that you use "reply all" to keep
the discussion together. The mailing list is just another party
that is on the CC list of the discussion, thereby keeping numerous
other people (subscribers) in on the loop.

The purpose of subscribing is to receive the e-mails; it is
not a requirement for participating in the discussion.

(Though many lists are member-only these days; but that is
due to the spam problem.)

Say, if I'm not reading the list, how come I can reply to you?

It's because I'm making an effort to work around your
misconfigured bouncer.

I have your archives (thanks for putting them up). That's
my preferred way of reading the list.

> Practically speaking, if you want help, it pays to comply with

Where do you get the idea that I want help? Who do you think
is helping whom here?

People who find issues are the ones who help the developer.

> convention rather than asking others to accommodate you.

I hope you realize that by "accomodate you", you are actually
referring to a proper use of the e-mail in the manner of how
everyone does it everywhere on the planet. Namely that when
you get an e-mail "From:" someone, that someone is among the
recipients of the reply; and furthermore, that everyone else
who was in the loop stays in the loop (if it is a discussion).

It is your mailing list which munged the headers
to make it difficult for you to reply to me, and that is what
is creating the need for special accomodation.

You can do whatever you want in your list, but
do you not suppose it is in your interest to make it easy for
people to communicate with you?

If I have an issue report of some kind, please don't make me jump
through hoops, and subscribe to have stuff dripping into my
mailbox that I'm not interested in just so I can see the reply.

Since you're letting non-subscribers post to the list,
what are you protecting yourself from, anyway?
Those evil bastard who are only interested in how their
particular report turns out, but don't want to drink the
whole jar of Cygwin Kool-Aid?

Man, do you know how hard it is to get feedback from people?
In this world, people just give up and move on, and
you don't even know! You write some program, 50 people
download it and install it, if you're lucky. Then unknown to
you, 48 of them get stuck on something and you never
hear from them.

Anyway, you have the complete information to deal with
(or not) the problem in the subject line. URL's given
in my previous e-mail, etc. I do not need to be
involved in any further discussion.

Next time I have any kind of report, I will make it a complete
"kit" in the very first e-mail, so I don't have to watch for
clueless replies in the archives, and come back to burp
you and change your dirty diapers after giving you the milk.

Good luck.


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