Hi all,  Here is my 2 cents worth.  MMD is great, there is no doubt
about it.  Charging is fine too but as for myself, our exchange rate
is four times worse than that of New Zealand and I would probably have
to quit MMD.  Well, one can't have it all I guess.

MMD must evaluate if is a large archive they want for access by a few
people, or make the information so public that hundreds will read it
and it will never be lost in the future.

What is the final destination of the MMD archive?  Is it to be preserved
somewhere for generations to come?  Is someone writing a book with the
information?  Nothing lasts forever and one day MMD will stop operating
in its current form.  Where does the archive go then?  If it were a
printed bulletin or so, it would sit in many peoples' book shelves and
be preserved that way.  In email form, it might get archived too, but if
the email distribution stops, the chances of the MMD archive surviving
for another 100 years or so are even slimmer than now.  Has anyone
thought about that yet?

Regards,

Bernt Damm
Cape Town

 [ The MMD Archives is already public and it will remain public;
 [ anybody may read it, anybody may copy it for personal use.  The
 [ contents of the MMD web site are duplicated at a mirror computer;
 [ someday we should make CDROMs for research libraries.  I hate to
 [ think of the cost of a printed and bound book of MMD!  -- Robbie