jimr@maths.su.oz.au (Jim Richardson) (08/01/90)
The Open Letter to Hewlett-Packard has been posted to comp.sys.apollo and
comp.sys.hp as article <1990Aug1.014631.4721@metro.ucc.su.OZ.AU>.
A list of signatories to the letter will now be collected. When complete, the
list also will be posted on Usenet, and signatories will be encouraged to
print out copies of the letter and the list of signatures, and send them --
perhaps with an individual covering letter -- to appropriate people within HP.
I hope to have time to produce a LaTeX version of the letter for printing out.
While the letter is written primarily from the point of view of Apollo
customers, people with other HP machines who would like HP to make greater
use of the Internet are also encouraged to sign.
If you would like to be a signatory, please proceed as follows.
* Write your signature. It could be based on your usual net signature, but
with some additional info and brief personal comments, to a total of no more
than 10 lines by 78 columns. For example, mine will look like this:
(Dr) Jim Richardson, Computer Systems Officer
Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Internet: jimr@maths.su.oz.au Phone: +61 2 692 2232 FAX: +61 2 692 4534
-- The University's Mathematics Departments have an Apollo DN10010 and
about 130 Apollo workstations. Our particular concerns include prompt
response to APRs via email, and our perception that communications be-
tween HP's Australian and US offices are poor on service issues.
* Prepare an email message. This should have subject field "Open Letter
signature", and a body consisting of the sentence
"I wish to add my signature to the Open Letter to Hewlett-Packard."
followed by the signature itself.
* Send the email message to the appropriate one of the following addresses,
depending on your own location and network connection:
from the Americas via Internet: jonathan@jarthur.claremont.edu
from Europe via Internet: netpower@els.ee.man.ac.uk
from UK via Janet: netpower@uk.ac.man.ee.els
or if that fails dente@uk.ac.manchester
from Europe/UK via UUCP: ukc!uk.ac.man.ee.els!netpower
or if that fails ukc!uk.ac.manchester!dente
from elsewhere, via Internet: netpower@maths.su.oz.au
Non-Internet people outside Europe and the UK should use an appropriate
gateway to reach the "Americas" or "elsewhere" Internet address.
* A brief acknowledgement should reach you by email within four days. If you
have not received it after that time, please try sending the message again
to one of the other addresses, this time with subject field "Open Letter
signature (second attempt)".
Thanks to Jonathan Ball and Colin Dente for their kind co-operation in the
collection of signatures.
As it's still holiday time in many northern hemisphere countries, a reasonably
long period for signature collection will be needed. So I would like to set
the closing date for *receipt* (not sending -- allow for email delays) of
signatures as
*** Thursday 16 August ***
Please let me know if there are important reasons for waiting longer.
If you feel you cannot be a publicly announced signatory to the Open Letter
but would still like to support it, you are encouraged to send copies, with
your own covering letter, to your HP contacts when the list of signatories
is finalized. If you intend to follow this course, perhaps you would like
to send me a brief email message saying so -- I will respect your desire for
privacy, but will keep count of such "silent supporters" and post the tally
to Usenet.
But I'd like to urge everyone who is concerned about HP support issues and
use of the Internet to become a public signatory. As I said in my original
"netpower" posting <1990Jul6.015817.23710@metro.ucc.su.OZ.AU>:
>There have been flurries of complaints about HP/Apollo's performance on Usenet
>before, but so far they've always died away leaving the bad old status quo in
>place. Let's not let that happen this time.
--
Jim Richardson
Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Internet: jimr@maths.su.oz.au ACSNET: jimr@maths.su.oz FAX: +61 2 692 4534