>The distinction between your wording, "When there's a real letter, I'll read it and consider whether I'm willing to put my name to it." and the question I posed "whether you would consider signing an open letter to Microsoft ..." eludes me. I also explicitly added this "If and when we complete a draft of this letter, you will have an opportunity to decide whether you're willing to sign it."
>

It's very simple. I'm not putting my name on a list. I have grave concerns about abuse of that list.

>So it's very revealing, and quite a surprise to me, that it wasn't a fear of retaliation from Microsoft that kept you quiet this long.

Why would I be afraid of Microsoft? I have a good relationship with the people I need to work with, and I've proved my value to them over and over, both by providing free technical support for their product and by spending my time beta-testing their product. If I were afraid of Microsoft, I'd never have written a book like the Hacker's Guide that pokes fun at them over and over.

>I have no intention of abusing any one's name,

You might not, but just as the UT is a public place, so's the Wiki. Anyone who wants to, can take that list and do anything with it.

>No one is getting payed to do this, and no one wants to be wasting anyone's time, so it's entirely reasonable to ask first, "Listen guys, are we in sufficient agreement on some basic points to bother?"

Fine, you've discovered that there are lots of people interested. Now write the d*mn letter, put it out there for revisions and see who wants to sign in.

BTW, have you considered the question of how you're going to get back to those hundreds of people to determine whether they're willing to sign the letter once you actually have it? This is an administrative nightmare.

>Shall we construct a second list of those who said "When there's a real letter, I'll read it and consider whether I'm willing to put my name to it." on UT?

Of course not. If we don't want our names on a list, we don't want our names on a list.

Tamar