jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers) (06/23/91)
In article <2247@riscy.enet.dec.com>, frank@croton.nyo.dec.com (Frank Wortner) writes: > > Be very careful when you make statements about copyright, patent, or > other intellectual property law. It's too easy to get into BIG > TROUBLE. If you have any doubts or questions about copyright or > other legal issues, consult a lawyer. You could save yourself > tremendous amounts of legal grief. > > If anyone cares to continue this topic, I've directed followups to > misc.legal. They certainly don't belong in comp.unix.ultrix. Well, now, I don't think I agree with this. Case in point: I've been involved is some discussions recently that derive from my attempts to make some sense out of our email mess. The basic problem here isn't that we need a good email package. The problem is that we have a lot of them, each one by itself quite usable, but incompatible with its neighbors. When you try to get cooperation from the supporters of each, you invariably get a lot of suggestions that if you had any brains at all, you would just use package ______ and those other turkeys should just slink off into the bushes and quietly die, and you are an idiot for not seeing this. This is, of course, just a lot of arrogant insults, and when I point this out, I invariably get a lot of "What the hell are you talking about, turkey?" responses. So I collect some of the most insulting of the lot and mail or post them, together with the observation that this is not helping to solve the problems. It seems to me that this is quite germane to the problem at hand. Note that the problem isn't technical. The problem is the arrogant, insulting and uncooperative nature of many of the people that you have to deal with to get a job done. It really helps to illustrate the problem if you can publish quotes. If this is illegal, then the people that are the cause of the problems can continue to get away with their actions, and we can't solve the problems. How many times have we seen "RTFM" when it is obvious that the writer had tried TFM and not understood it? -- All opinions Copyright (c) 1991 by John Chambers. Inquire for licensing at: Home: 1-617-484-6393 ...!{bu.edu,harvard.edu,ima.com,eddie.mit.edu,ora.com}!minya!jc Work: 1-508-486-5475 {sppip7.lkg.dec.com!jc,ub40::jc}