Dr. Kenneth P. Bowman writes:
> I don't think it is appropriate for UNIDATA to provide its mailing lists
> for the asking. It would be better for her to send a message to the
> mailing list explaining why she wants to know who uses netCDF and asking
> interested users to reply.
As a publicly-funded effort, I don't think we can withhold this information
from people who request it, especially since the same information can be
obtained without our knowledge or intervention by using the VRFY command to
the sendmail daemon on the proper telnet port (please don't ask me for
details). However, I agree with you that it would not be a good thing for
multiple copies of the netcdfgroup mailing list to exist, because
maintenance of the list would then become impractical. In this case, I
think the purpose of the specific request was to find out if someone from
another institution was on the list. As far as I know, there have been no
cases of abuse, such as sending a product advertisement to everyone on the
list.
There is a way for users to receive mail from a Unidata mailing list and
also to protect their identity or prevent us from making their names
available to others. Just set up you own local mail alias with a generic
name like netcdf-users@xxxxxxx, make sure your name is on that alias, and
have us substitute the alias name on our mailing list(s) for your
address(es). You would then be responsible for protecting your local alias
from the telnet/sendmail/VRFY mechanism.
Please remember to send requests for mailing address changes, deletions, or
additions to netcdfgroup-adm or netcdfdigest-adm (@unidata.ucar.edu), *not*
to netcdfgroup or netcdfdigest. Thank you.
________________________________________________________________________
Russ Rew Unidata Program Center
russ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx UCAR, PO Box 3000
Boulder, CO 80307-3000
