It's not really that, AFAICS.  Off the top of my head, let's think of who
might have interests/copyrights in bits of the RISC OS code:

Acorn, ANT, Codemist, Univ. Berkeley, Olivetti/ARC, ARM, RISC OS Ltd, Pace,
Castle, ESP.

And there are probably loads more I can't think of.  Teasing out that lot,
who owns which code and which bits are licensed under what conditions are
going to be tricky if little evidence remains.  And something you're going
to have to do, because it isn't going to be pretty if (say) ANT were to turn
round and sue for releasing something publically that wasn't allowed.

Theo

Hi,

On 19 Mar, 21:55, John Cartmell <j...@cartmell.demon.co.uk> wrote:

As if you need someone's agreement to announce something :)

Chris.

On 19 Mar, 22:47, Steve Fryatt <n...@stevefryatt.org.uk> wrote:

That would have been Drobe, yes. It was a genuine newsworthy piece of
public interest.

Chris / drobe.co.uk

In article <pan.2007.03.19.23.16.43.678...@rjek.com>, Rob Kendrick

Thanks for that clarification.

'Mentioning things in passing' to Chris Williams is equivalent to publication!

Thanks for taking the blame. ;-)

--
        John

In article <1174348557.342836.201...@d57g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, diodesign

No. As if they appeared to be about to be unfairly blamed for making an
announcement that was in fact made by someone else without their agreement.

Consequencies, dear boy.

--
        John

On 19-Mar-2007, jl <j...@spamnet.co.uk> wrote:

In general I agree that people /should/ stick to the charter and not indulge
in wildly OT discussions, especially as these often seem to turn into public
brawls, which *are* offensive to almost everyone.

However.....

The number of people contributing to such threads and the number of postings
on such topics often exceeds the number of people contributing to the more
normal subjects. This would seem to indicate to me that they're not as
unpopular as some people would have us believe (until, of course, they
descend into personal abuse, when *no-one* approves). You could almost say
it's a sort of 'democracy in action'. I've never heard anyone say "I've
stopped reading the c.s.a groups because there's too much off topic stuff"
but I've heard a lot of people say "I've stopped reading the c.s.a groups
because there's too much bickering and petty argument".

A few years ago reigning in OT discussions would have been important. Then
most subscribers would have had dial-up access and the numbers of posts were
*much* larger. These days the additional bandwidth (even for those using
dial up) is probably not really important since the total number of postings
has dropped to a fraction of what it used to be. I suspect that if anyone
cared to do a comparison they'd find that OffT posting have dropped
significantly, it's just that with the huge reduction in OnT postings they
seem more significant.

I've also noticed that those who rant loudest about them don't seem to have
any problems with threads that drift OT when they drift into areas that
they're interested in  ;-)

In general, I think that the OT stuff, while not a good thing and should be
discouraged is *in itself* not really detrimental to the groups. The silly
arguments that such threads often lead to certainly is, as is the equally
silly bickering which arises when the self-appointed 'net police' turn up
and admonish the participants.

I think most of the regulars around here (note use of 'most') are quite
grown up enough to police ourselves. If a thread does start to drift
seriously OT, with the current low level of traffic on these groups,
although it can be annoying, at least it lets us know that there are still
more than half a dozen people still alive out there.

--
David Holden - APDL - <http://www.apdl.co.uk>

In message <4ec6221018SW_NOS...@dsl.pipex.com>
  Stuart <SW_NOS...@dsl.pipex.com> wrote:

If only!

From "News from RISCOS Ltd March 3rd 2006"

<quote>

Adjust 32 / Select 4 Progress
-----------------------------
We are now nearing the final stages of Select 4 development and the
subject to any final last minute hitches the first release will be made
in time for the Wakefield Show in May this year.

regards

Paul Middleton
RISCOS Ltd

</quote>

Wakefield 2006 that is.

I rather resent my 'wasted' Select subscriptions and see my purchase of
an A9home as a potential waste of money. My Select subscription is up
for renewal soon and presents a hard choice. One the one hand it is
obviously stupid to continue to support such a waste of space but I do
have a reluctance to finally pull the plug, I do like RISC OS and
Select. What would really make me cross is to shell out another £99 and
still get nothing, my level of expectation is such that I can believe
that of ROL.

Just what is next from ROL, is it just OS4.39 from the 32bit source,
RO6pv with printing and Viewfinder support.

Richard's original post is very sad. Had he bought an Iyonix, and not an
A9omega, it may not have had to have been written.

Sent in sorrow.
--
David Pitt.

Computing with RISC OS.

In message <569hsbF272nr...@mid.individual.net>
          David Holden <black_h...@apdl.co.uk> wrote:

Quite.

And there is the not inconsiderable argument that while it may be bad
for the charter it's good for the market. If people feel they can
occasionally let off steam or share a joke with other people who they
'know' only through these groups, they will be more likely to feel
good about the RISC OS marketplace and buy things which in the long
term benefits all of us including the charter freaks.

Alan

--
RISC OS - you know it makes cents

Thanks, that's a sensible approach.  Over on cam.misc there's a fairly
similar relaxed attitude - apart from the few deranged spammers (easily
killfiled) it's more "misc, for anyone who has even a tenuous connection
with Cambridge" and it seems to work.

Indeed.  What's much more annoying than OT drift is the few people who have
a political cause to promote and post huge numbers of irrelevant 'news'
stories to push their cause.  Often they're hard to killfile, which makes
the group much less workable.  (see uk.local.*, sci.geo.*, some of talk.*
etc)

I should add that it's much easier to get newsgroups created/renamed now, so
if we wanted to adjust the groups we have that shouldn't be a problem.

Theo

As far as I can tell, nobody pre-announced what they were going to be
doing, dear.

B.