Winship <[log in to unmask]> says: >I knew this would happen eventually, but, still, BOO, HISS! > >And a question: is this person who wants to charge for subscribing to the >list going to pay royalties to those who answer questions about list >management on this and other lists, for which there is no direct charge? >If not, why not? Maybe I and others will stop answering questions unless >we get our cut. Well, I suppose it depends on the purpose of the list. If it is something for which people generally manage lists for the passion or shared interest of the group, and which traditionally has been provided for free as a "labour of love," then perhaps I would disapprove. But perhaps the fee covers some of the real cost of running the list--it's getting harder and harder to find system administrators willing to host lists for free. Even world.std.com, which is perhaps more closely tied to the roots of the Internet culture than many other commercial providers, recently announced that they would charge a fee (monthly+number of subscribers+message volume (possibly)). I wouldn't dream of charging for the lists I manage, but I don't think it is _automatically_ a bad thing. (However, I don't envy the person the administrative burden of collecting the money--he couldn't charge very much, owing to competition from those who are willing to do this sort of thing for free, and I can't imagine this possibly being cost/time-effective till e-money becomes a reality and in widespread use.) As far as the "free advice" they get on this and other lists and other Internet resources in general: LOTS of professionals, service providers, marketing agents, scums, etc., in all fields get free information from the Internet, as they do from free libraries, etc. And lots of people profit from the information--many profit even from the _existence_ of the information, and the need to disseminate it, etc. If I don't want someone to profit from _direct_ use of information I provide on the Internet without my getting cut, I'll put an explicit copyright statement on it and charge royalties; otherwise, I presumably have no objection to its reasonably use (yes, yes, we've had the discussion on implicit copyrights! :-)). But there is no way to know how someone uses _general knowledge_ gained from the contributions of a number of people--it is not reasonable to expect that it will be used only in ways that do not, directly or indirectly, put money into anybody's pockets. Shahrukh Merchant