In case you wonder why L-Soft is not on the list of companies that signed
the letter, it was a difficult decision. While we generally supported the
message and initiative, I had a problem with one sentence in the original
draft (which appears to have been revised for the better in the final
version). After much consideration, I decided that I just could not sign the
letter as it was, and of course I could not presume to ask everyone else to
change the letter for me, so L-Soft did not make it to the list of
signatories.

But AOL's monopolistic pay-per-send approach remains very much of a concern
for us, and it is the main topic of the LISTSERV 14.5 Product Manager's
message that I am finishing up as I write these lines. Quoting from my
draft, "We can do better with technology based on open standards, but, alas,
not today. The open standard community was taken by surprise and will need
some time to recoup and extend current protocols to provide reputation and
certification services. Meanwhile, everybody who opposes pay-for-send needs
to become familiar with the technology that we have today, and deploy it not
just as a vote of confidence, but because it provides concrete benefits
today."

AOL appears to have responded to the open letter as it did before, with
disdain. To paraphrase them, "there is no substantive news here"; AOL's
corporate strategy has so far been to belittle its critics, but deftly step
around the core issues, in a manner reminiscent of an indigenous pedestrian
navigating the soiled streets of Paris. I will concede that their spokesman
is entertaining. His Star Wars line was funny, and I cannot wait to see his
lemonade stand with my own eyes. It must be quite a sight, with 350
lemonades served every second! That is the quantity of $0.10 lemonades that
would have to be served in order to match the potential revenue of the
AOL-Goodmail deal (300 million non-spam messages per day x $0.01 = $3M = 30
million lemonades per day).

Jokes aside, Nicholas Graham's brilliant displays of rhetoric are no
substitute for a healthy debate on the subject matter. Until this happens,
we all need to keep showing our discontent at every opportunity. Eventually,
AOL will have to listen to us, because over 10 million AOL e-mail addresses
are subscribed to LISTSERV lists.

  Eric