General Policy And Mission Statements For "The Linux And Unix Menagerie" Web Log

Mission Statement - Rev 1.0:

The Linux and Unix Menagerie WebLog (hereafter referred to as the "blog") has a very simple mission statement, that is open to change and revision if, for any reason, the intent or direction of the blog's content radically changes. As this Mission Statement may change in the future (although we doubt that it will to a great degree), please revisit The Linux and Unix Menagerie blog to ensure that you are reading the most up to date revision.

Our blog's mission is to provide, hopefully, helpful advice on a wide variety of Unix/Linux computing-related topics to Linux and Unix users and administrators of varying skill levels. We do not answer to, nor do we specifically recommend, any particular distribution of Linux and/or Unix and try to be as unbiased as possible (although we will name distro's specifically when it is germane to the subject matter). This blog's content is also not restricted to the Unix and/or Linux OS. Topics may include many things related to Unix/Linux, including, but not limited to, hardware used to run the OS and maintenance thereof, programming/scripting within the OS, applications that can be used on the OS and technical, or OS, opinion in general. This blog covers a very wide range of topics and the preceding list should be taken as a rough outline (as almost every post has "something" to do with Linux or Unix) and not a concrete limitation to the type of content available to anyone who wishes to read it.

It is our hope that this blog (each and/or any one of its posts) may provide someone, somewhere with a little help, assistance or nudge in the right direction so that they can enjoy the Linux and Unix experience more fully or feel more comfortable with using Linux or Unix. We love it, and hope to spread that excitement and enthusiasm to you.

We also, along the same lines, try to present our material in a manner which is most accessible to all levels of user or administrator. Much of this blog consists of prose and dialogue and much of it consists of examples which cannot be modified to suit the author's taste (For Example: We might write an entire page about why we think booting to cdrom from the ok> prompt on Solaris is great, but we would leave the actual command ("boot cdrom") as is. We can't change that simple command to suit our writing style)

Our hope is that this blog provides an even balance of explanation and introduction to the many facets of Unix/Linux system administration and computing in as entertaining and creative a way as possible.

Statement of Policies - Rev 1.0:

1. No comment policy: While we do not accept comments directly on this blog, this does not mean that we don't appreciate them and/or encourage them. For this reason, a static email link is present on every page of the blog at the top right hand corner (below the header). The blog provides a free service and, in an attempt to do so, spends as much time as possible to ensure that each post is as accurate as it can be. We do not eschew the reader's thoughts or idea's at all (note the email link). We think comments are great, and welcome (and respond to) them in various alternate venues that carry this blog's contents, as often, and as consistently, as is reasonably possible. We do not encourage commenting for commenting's sake and do not write our material in anticipation of comments, as this would seriously skew the "everyman" flavour we try to bring to the blog. Again, we do appreciate all comments, but make no guarantees that they will be answered (although we've yet to not return an email). Our no comment policy also stands, as our hosting provider (Google) crawls our site almost every day and we do not wish to risk losing the blog because of site spamming, pornographic posting, vulgarity, obscenity or any other material Google does not deem appropriate for a site that is not considered "adult." Keep in mind that Google crawls even those comments that are waiting in moderation and we have no control over the "robots.txt" file and can only set a Meta Tag to FOLLOW or NOFOLLOW (the latter almost guaranteeing that we don't get indexed well in Google's search engine). This may seem like blatant cow-towing to Google, and it is. Since our blog needs to first be found before it even be considered for comment, we do what we can to keep them happy and abide by the rules of their TOS. They basically "own" the internet search market. We make no apologies for complying with their standards.

2. No commercial Guarantee policy: All of the material posted on this blog is posted as free advice and we make no commercial guarantee that anything you read here will be absolutely relevant to your situation, need or desire. Any scripts posted on this site, although tested to run on various OS's before posting, should be double checked by the reader before being used for any reason at all on personal, or work, computers. All advice and help, although posted in good faith, may or may not be suitable for your purposes. We make no guarantee, and assume no responsibility, for any damage caused by any idea, method or script/code that you choose to implement on your own Unix/Linux hardware, OS and/or networks.

3. No Charge policy: Everything posted in this blog is posted free-of-charge, which (we believe) is the very nature of blogging: Free exchange, or posting, of information with no strings attached. You will never be asked, or solicited in any way, to fill out forms, vote in polls, click on links or do anything except open your browser and make your way to our site in order to have full access to the information presented in each and every post, except in the odd situation that a post gets pulled and is no longer available for public consumption.

4. Creative Commons Licensing policy: We license this blog under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license. You can follow the link for the legal nitty-gritty, but it, in effect, states that all original material posted on this blog belongs to the blog author(s) and can only be used for non-commercial purposes, and may be modified, or word-for-word redistributed, as long as full attribution is given to the original author and is, likewise, shared under an equal license. We feel this is a fair licensing method and provides us with virtually no protection or reward unless (if by some miracle) content from this site is used to create a "for profit" product. We would, then, be entitled to a cut, which would be a raise of however much that cut is, from our current salary received for creating and maintaining this blog, which is still hovering at zero dollars and zero cents per hour.

5. Email comment policy: We strongly encourage any reader with a desire to help improve this blog, or point out an obvious imperfection, to email us with any suggestions he or she might have that will help improve the quality of the blog and make it a better source for others to come and find help. We cannot guarantee any specific response time (again this blog is being maintained for no fee at the expense of the author(s)' free time), but make every attempt to respond within a 24 hour period whenever possible. This policy is closely related with our "no comment" policy as Google does not crawl our email accounts and reception of materials in violation of Google's TOS, in this manner, will not affect the blog, or its existence, in any way. We reserve the right to completely ignore (to the point of not responding and/or blocking) any threatening emails, harassment or other objectionable materials or SPAM that is sent to our blog's email address.

In summation: This is version 1.0 of both our Mission Statement and Statement of Policies. They may be revised at any time, and the reason for revision may be because of a suggestion made by one of our readers. If you wish to suggest an addition, subtraction, enhancement or refinement of any of the policies listed above, please email us via the "Send me a comment" link at the top right of every page of our blog.

Thank you,

The Linux and Unix Menagerie