I hope I haven't offended anyone with my previous letter re: back-patters. I was in a very angry status, as usual (the fact that I work 12 hours a day in the machine room, read crowded heap of paraphernalia with the sound level you can imagine, does nothing to improve it), and was particularly pissed off at some letter I had just read. I didn't mean to offend the people who were really wishing me luck (anyway they saw the replies I sent them privately). I was mostly referring to people I had almost never heard of (if at all), who wrote to me for the first (or second) time in their life to try to get me to give LISTSERV to EARN or BITNET (they don't have money to buy it) so they could keep developing it (maybe under a joint contract with IBM, DEC or whatever - and of course these would want to sell it later), after an extensive amount of back-patting and the like. I am really pissed off at all the pressure I'm getting to sign contracts about LISTSERV with EARN and suchlike. I just will not do it, period. I am *especially* angry at the fact that these people think it is my duty to sign this kind of contracts without getting any money in exchange. They should be glad that I am kind enough to let EARN/BITNET use LISTSERV indefinitely and free of charge, and I really don't see how they can think they are in a position to demand that I sign contracts or the like. When I am in "pissed off" status, I tend to forget about all the other nice guys and to make harsh decisions (or statements for that matter). I see no reason why I should stop giving out new free licenses for EARN/BITNET sites, or trying to discontinue the use of LISTSERV on the network (actually I've just sent 4 more copies yesterday and today). But I see no reason why I should sign contracts, nor why I should cooperate with people who demand them (and are usually not even EARN/BITNET officials by the way). By the way I've just received a new job offer to be inserted in the top three, which includes VM development and EARN access. Now if I could only trade the PC/MAC offers for VM ones :-) Eric