Below is the farewell speech of a modern-day Robin Hood on alt.binaries.fonts, a very helpful, generous and courageous man. I preserved his speech, because we need more people like him, not fewer. In the end, I am sure, corporate America won again, and everyone else lost....

Luc Devroye

Article 75980 of alt.binaries.fonts:
From: "Entity"
Subject: Please Read (ergo Sianora)...
Lines: 186
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 11:47:49 -0500

Folks,
I've been doing some heavy thinking over the last few days... I also had a few discussions with my wife and a couple of our friends (even the old neighbour's dog contributed quite a few barks here and there when we got beer-bellied and loud on the patio)... the short of it is this: Robin Hood is not as widely accepted nowadays as he was at one point (my loving wife's phrasing here)... and so, as much as I hate saying this, I will not be posting anything on the font groups anymore... on to the parting words: my impression of the font-related newsgroups has been great and will always be... I think most of the people are very helpful and mean well... personally, I know that I got off on the wrong foot with a lot of people, but then again, not everyone has the same beliefs... I certainly do not regret a single word I said on the groups, not a post, not an attachment, not anything... it's been quite the engaging experience for me and I can only hope for the feeling to be reciprocated on the groups... one person (Warlock, I believe the nick was) decided to stop posting on the groups and posted a parting message about a week ago, which had an electric effect on me... actually, only one of the words in his/her post had the electric effect on me... somewhere in the post, Warlock angrily said that these newsgroups are "regulated"... as the days went by, I began seeing what that person meant... you know, the best metaphor I heard about the internet is one that compares it to a humongous universal library... I'd like to believe that... my experience with the internet has been at most charming and at least challenging... just like in a huge library, anything I needed or wanted to know is on the internet, and I am grateful for that... and just like in a library, I also met great people over the internet, and I'm also grateful for that... I think that's why it once had a label like "the information superhighway"... viewed from that perspective, and from a few other ones as well (it gives jobs to people, it teaches people, it entertains people, etc...) the internet is great... until, in my opinion, you start seeing all these stores on the superhighway, stores that jump up at you like in-your-face billboards... the difference between the stores on the information superhighway and the stores on actual highways like the 101 in England, 401 in Canada and I-95 in the United States) is that the stores on the real highways are actually accessible through an exit ramp, while the stores on the information superhighway actually are right on the highway itself... the stores on the information superhighway come to you instead of you going to them... it doesn't matter whether or not you asked for Hole's latest song collection, you are offered it and you have to click it away... heaven knows I clicked away many stores for the last fourteen years... that's one not-so-agreeable thing about it... another not-so-agreeable thing about the internet is the talk of many campaigns we've all seen... in-your-face pornography... there are two sides to the libido deal here, of course, and one side claims that pornography can be a hobby (between you and me, my neighbour, the old lady with the dog, is as much of a nut as she is a hobbyist)... there are, of course, many other not-so-agreeable things about the internet, but I can't think of one right now (I need to shoo the spouse away here: BE GAWN, WOMAN!)... newsgroups, like any other internet gatherings, are prone to have the internet's not-so-agreeable qualities... but the one quality that I actually can't bring myself to make piece with is the chord that Warlock struck... regulated?... hell, no... FREEDOOOOOOM (in my bad Mel Gibson impression, which is worth it because it always makes the wife laugh)... hell, no... of course not... over my dead body... believe it or not, a million slogans and anthems ran through my head when I read that word... everything I ever learned in literature, history, philosophy and big-budget Hollywood flicks flashed through my head when I read that word... hell, I was PISSED when I read that word... regulated?... we are being REGULATED?... not me, sorry... my dignity, my family, my freedom: you touch them the wrong way, you have yourself an enemy... if the library were run by lawyers, I wouldn't set foot in it, and I'd graffiti its walls at 3 am on a Thursday... I'd still drive on the highway even if no other driver likes my car or the way I drive, but if out of every ten drivers that go by, one stops me to tell me how lousy my car is or that I shouldn't drive the way I do, I'd say the hell with the highway... I'll take the scenic route... I refused to believe that we were being regulated, but slowly yet surely I was convinced that we are... by many people and many numbers... I speak on behalf on many people who feel the same way and agree with me about this subject... since I started off as a bad guy who yaps too much, I have no problem leaving on the same note... I 'll take the bullet-proof-window seat from now on... tell you what... let me introduce a word that many of us are familiar with but some aren't... the word is "moderated"... as an internet term, the word "moderated" is usually associated with gatherings of people with the same interest (like a relational database, something I can't get my dad to understand no matter how I try)... when a gathering of people on the internet is moderated, it means that the rule of thumb prohibits advertising for monetary gain and nobody tells anybody else what to do in the group... there are tons of moderated newsgroups and I belong to some... moderated newsgroups are also not accessible from web-based engines... but basically on those newsgroups, you check your work at the door and become someone with a navel like everyone else, looking for help or looking to give help... that is Utopia and I'm going back there, and good riddance to the dood who posts copyrighted material; I'll also make sure that the door does hit me in the ass on my way out... sadly none of the moderated newsgroups have anything to do with fonts, but maybe I can convince some people to start a moderated font group (actually I have plans to start one myself)... hope springs eternal, and all that (I actually had to memorize 10,000 proverbs over four years in literature classes -- I do use them a lot, mind you, so it ain't so bad)... it'll take some hard work to convince people to start a moderated font group, since I think that a font-fascination is something you develop over a period of time... I can't go without saying thank you to all the people who emailed me to thank me for the fonts... please keep in touch and if you need anything regarding fonts, I'll try to help in any way I can... I also say thank you to people who emailed me fonts when I needed them, and people who posted fonts for me when I needed them... I will be getting a cable internet connection soon, so if you keep in touch with me through email, you will soon have access to a 24-hour font-related FTP server that gets updated daily... after I get the cable connection, I'll see what I can do about starting a moderated font newsgroup on one of my servers (I need to find out how to do that and I suspect it'll take a few weeks to learn the process then set it up -- if anyone can help me get some information on that, I would very much appreciate it)... meanwhile you can still use entity14@hotmail.com to reach me (I check it at least three times a day)... in the unlikely happenstance that anything goes wrong with the hotmail address, those of you who already contacted me on it will receive another address where I can be reached... these words said, and finally to sum up my time on the groups, I think what happened is this: I asked for some fonts and received them, I was asked for some fonts and I tried my best, I asked questions and got good answers, I was asked questions and tried to give good answers, I asked a question about a company and the answer is in the works, I posted copyrighted material that some people objected to, I started a "font of the day" ordeal which I hope someone will continue (if you need fonts for "font of the day", email me)... all in all, how much hell can one raise during one month, eh? Take care, people (you too, Axxa -- ah, settle down, I'm just kidding, you're alright; noogie noggie)...

Entity