Freecycle

Let me tell you about FreeCycle. It's brilliant. It's a noticeboard to get rid of stuff that's too good to throw away or too much hassle to sell/auction, like furniture, left over DIY stuff, and anything else. I've got rid of plenty since last summer, and got lots that I want. No cash exchanges hands. No strings attached.

Our local group has an associated forum (a meta-freecycle if you like), to discuss related issues. Only it's got too full of complaints, like most forums. Like, people are too greedy, people don't turn up to collect, people should leave a little gift.

Spent a while coming up with a reply then decided life is too short (well, my wife did) and 'un-subscribe' said everything.

Except let's just borrow from the Open Source / Free Software Movement:

• It's free like free beer. Enough said
• It's free as in free speech. Freedom. No conditions, no ratings, no judgements, no strings attached.

And I'm free to keep my inbox free of it all.