Dudes:

Just another reminder that the PICLIST Fund will be closing at the
end of this month, at which point all the money I've collected will
be donated to Jory Bell, the founder and operator of the PICLIST.

Many of you have made some good suggestions regarding possible uses
to which the money could be put... I'll be forwarding a compilaton of
those suggestions to Jory, as well.

If you haven't contributed yet and think you might want to, please
read the PICLIST Fund FAQ before doing so; you can find the FAQ at
the URL in my signature.

Remember:  Anyone CAN contribute, but no one HAS to.

Which reminds me...

In the recent thread that started with a $25/hour job offer (and
grew to involve employment practices in general, software-piracy
issues, questions about source-code rights, etc.), there were a
couple of posts that rhetorically asked, "Have you contributed to
the PICLIST Fund?".

While I'm sure that the authors of those messages didn't mean to
imply that there was any necessity to contribute to the Fund, some
list-members may have inferred that donations to the Fund were
somehow REQUIRED, if for no other reason than for their questions
and concerns to be taken seriously by the rest of us on the PICLIST.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

As I wrote in the PICLIST Fund FAQ,

    "Donations are ABSOLUTELY voluntary; you won't gain any personal
    privileges on the PICLIST if you donate, and you won't lose any
    if you don't.

    "No one will think any less of you if you choose not to
    contribute to the Fund, and if you don't contribute, the list
    (for as long as it's operational) will continue to be available
    to you for free, as it always has been.

    "Jory has no intention of transforming the PICLIST into a
    fee-based service; the Fund has been set up for one-time
    voluntary donations only."

If any of you haven't yet read the PICLIST Fund FAQ, I urge you to do
so... Even if you decide not to contribute to the Fund, reading the
FAQ will give you an appreciation of the trouble to which Jory's
gone to keep the list running.

If you decide not to contribute, you might want to send a thank-you
note to Jory (jory@mit.edu) anyway; he deserves it.

-Andy

=== Andrew Warren - fastfwd@ix.netcom.com
=== Fast Forward Engineering - Vista, California
===
=== Custodian of the PICLIST Fund -- For more info, see:
=== http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2499/fund.html