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From: primer_b@husc4.harvard.edu (jeremy primer)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Backup files and auto-deletion
Message-ID: <956@husc6.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Jan-87 14:19:52 EST
Article-I.D.: husc6.956
Posted: Tue Jan  6 14:19:52 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Jan-87 22:46:20 EST
References: <8701061644.AA01017@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Sender: news@husc6.UUCP
Reply-To: primer@husc4.harvard.edu (jeremy primer)
Organization: Harvard Math Department
Lines: 32
Summary: the heat is on

In article <8701061644.AA01017@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
  shap@ucbvax.berkeley.edu@sfdww.UUCP writes some reasonable stuff,
  but concludes with this diatribe:

>By and large, the superusers aren't out to get people, but they have
>a real problem, and rms has as usual gone off half-cocked blasting them to
>hell for incompetence. Richard, I get sick of that and so does
>everyone else, and it doesn't help your product any. When will you learn
>that a product doesn't stand on merit - it stands on marketing first, then
>merit? Not everyone has infinite diskspace on which to hold infinite
>backups, nor infinite time to solicit individual input on what to delete.
>
>Jon Shapiro

The "product" is so good by now that it doesn't hurt much either.  If
there is no room on a machine for multiple backups, you can always
change site-init.el to change the way inexperienced users use GNU
Emacs.  Dealing with experienced users will, of course, be more
difficult :-).

rms clearly UNlearned the addage about "marketing first" a long time
ago, if he ever had learned it.  He's not marketing any of GNU.

It's common sense that when a system manager deletes users' files, a
conflict or problem is likely to arise.  I'm glad rms pointed out that
the cron files to do automatic deletion (which have appeared here this
week) may be seen as an abuse of superuser privileges at some sites.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeremy Primer                           primer@husc4.harvard.EDU
Department of Mathematics               primer%husc4@harvard.ARPA
1 Oxford Street                         primer@harvsc4.BITNET
Cambridge, MA  02138                    ...!harvard!husc4!primer