I read Brian's proposal as three separate arguments:
1) The toasters mailing list should not be hosted on a domain which many people would probably associate with a political group. ("sends a political message")
2) The toasters mailing list should not be hosted by an organization which is smaller in size than Google Inc. ("moving from one boutique mailing list hosting service to another")
3) Google Inc the best choice to host the toasters mailing list. ("moving from one boutique mailing list hosting service to another")
Several people have replied to Brian's initial email with some variant of "Agreed". To those people I ask: To which parts (some? all?) of Brian's suggestion are you agreeing?
I'm inclined to concur with point number one. I realize that Tom has held registration of teaparty.net since before the onset of the current political movement and that (as per the disclaimer at the top of http://teaparty.net/) he disclaims any and all affiliation with said political movement - a point which it seems may have been lost on one or two respondents - but I agree with Brian that the domain name has the potential to be misinterpreted by others who (as such) might be disinclined to consider joining the list or who might otherwise be confused as to the list's purpose or tenor.
That being said, I do not agree with points two and three. I think it is lovely that toasters has moved back to its initial home on the internet (and thank you to the original founders, everyone who has provided hosting over the years, and the current host for all that you have done!), and I see no need to move the list to Google Groups or any other host.
It appears that the domain name 'toasters.net' is available for registration, and I would be happy to register it on Tom's behalf, if he is so interested. Tom?
Respectfully,
-Chris Allison -- UNIX Systems Administrator College of Computer and Information Science Northeastern University, Boston, MA