Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2000 19:52:40 -0500 (EST)
From: William Stearns <wstearns@pobox.com>
To: William Stearns <wstearns@pobox.com>
Subject: Mason mailing lists

Good day, all,
	Many thanks for your interest in Mason (the Linux automated
firewall builder, http://mason.stearns.org) in the past.  You're receiving
this because you and I have communicated about Mason.
	Over the past year or so I've been overloaded with questions; it's
a good sign that Mason is getting so much use :-), but bad in that I never
quite seem to be able to catch up and I _hate_ failing to answer even one
question.  My sincerest apologies to all who haven't receieved a personal
response.
	With the goal of fixing this problem, I've set up mailing lists
for Mason and would like to invite you to join!  Executive summary: sign
up for mason-announce if you use or have any interest in Mason at all, and
keep reading to find out how to get help or contribute to the project.

	"mason-announce" is for Mason-related announcements only; it's
moderated and very low volume.  Perfect for sites that keep listings of
Linux applications or security tools and individuals who'd like to know
when a new release is available.
	To subscribe, send mail to majordomo@geek-speak.net with
"subscribe mason-announce" in the body.

	"mason-help" is for general discussion of all topics related to
the Mason firewall builder.  On-topic discussion includes bug reports,
questions, feature requests, suggestions, and questions about operating
Mason.  All Mason tech support questions should be directed to this
address where multiple people can provide answers.  General packet
filtering, firewall, Linux, networking, kernel, ipfwadm, ipchains,
netfilter, and iptables questions are considered on-topic as well.  I'd
like to encourage you to join this list even if you don't currently have
questions about Mason; you may have the answer someone else needs!
	As an added bonus, I've found a solution to a common "crash" that
Mason experiences.  Guess where I'm going to post it?  *smile*  I'll hold
off until the beginning of next week to give people time to sign up.
	To subscribe, send mail to majordomo@geek-speak.net with
"subscribe mason-help" in the body.

	"mason-devel" is a discussion list for the people involved in the
development of the Mason firewall builder and related projects.  Issues
about code, patches, packaging issues, distribution, translations and
general communication between developers are considered on-topic.
	If you have any interest in contributing to the project, please
get in touch with me via this list.  There are a number of projects that
do not require any ability to write code whatsoever.
	To subscribe, send mail to majordomo@geek-speak.net with
"subscribe mason-devel" in the body.

	I encourage you to sign up for the mason-announce list at a
minimum - if any security issues are discovered in the future, they will
only be posted to this list.
	My sincerest thanks for your interest in Mason!  I look forward to
seeing you on the mailing lists.
	Cheers,
	- Bill

P.S.	Many of you have seen the article I wrote on "Getting Started with
Mason; How will you spend _your_ lunch hour".  It draws on the Quickstart,
but tries to take a more friendly approach.  The editor of that magazine
(Baiju Thakkar, contributor@linuxmonth.com) would love to hear from anyone
interested in writing about Linux topics.
	If you haven't seen it, head over to http://www.linuxmonth.com .

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	"It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both
incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by
twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper." 
	-- Rod Serling
(Courtesy of Dr. G.W. Wettstein <greg@wind.enjellic.com>)
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William Stearns (wstearns@pobox.com).  Mason, Buildkernel, named2hosts, 
and ipfwadm2ipchains are at:                http://www.pobox.com/~wstearns
LinuxMonth; articles for Linux Enthusiasts! http://www.linuxmonth.com
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