Franz marketing sleaze

[hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil (Dan Hoey)]

In a message last week to comp.lang.lisp, I commented on some code to
shuffle a list in Lisp.  Today I got email from sarah@franz.com about
my message ``regarding Apple's announcement to discontinue their
support and development of MCL.''  That was odd, since I had not
mentioned Apple or MCL.  It assured me that my sentiment was ``shared
by most all MCL users.''  I wonder which sentiment that was.  Reading
the message, it became clear that this was not even about that
subject.  It was an offer to send me sales information on Franz Inc.'s
Lisp products for non-Macintosh platforms.

I think it would be very nice to receive such an invitation if I had
asked about how to get Lisp.  But when it is sent to people who don't
ask for software information, it qualifies as marketing sleaze.  I
don't want my mailbox full of junk mail every time I venture an
opinion on a software topic.  Sending marketing mail to people who
don't ask for the information is a pretty slimy way of doing business,
and I had thought Franz Inc. was a lot more reputable than that.

Dan Hoey
Hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil