tsouth@pro-pac.cts.com (System Administrator) (06/27/89)
Recently, a number of you may have seen this across the net: >Re: rec.arts.startrek posting > >> From: rubin@Apple.COM (Owen R. Rubin) > >> first time around (I wonder if it was different). Anybody have a good >> source and would be willing to dup me a copy onto either STANDARD Hi-Fi >> VHS or Super Beta (2 hour mode). I would be willing to pay for the tape, >> and shipping. Thanks > >Sorry to get off of the subject, but with all of the heady talk from Apple >employees on comp.sys.apple/info-apple on just how much they abhor piracy >of their software, I just wanted to take this post and frame it in memorandum >of one Apple employee who is not perfect! :) :) :) > >Todd South Well, from mail that I have personally received it appears that the comments I made in jest were not taken that way by some of the folks at Apple and throughout the net. I wish to say a few things about this. First off, what I was commenting on was funny to me at the time. While a number of you throughout the net and particularly at Apple may have thought that I was being vindictive about this, you are dead wrong. If Owen thinks (and I'm sure he does from comments that I have received) that I meant to harm him, he is wrong, and I apologize for any misdeed he feels I have done him. I simply wanted to poke a little humor at someone who had obviously made a public blunder, considering what has been bantered around the net as of late. Owen, please believe me when I say that I meant you no wrong; I was posting in good humor that appears to have been taken as me personally calling you a pirate. I am not, and by the way, what you were asking for is not illegal in California (if you check your law books). You were asking to look at something that was recorded off of the airwaves and as long as the person charged you no more than the cost of shipping the tape you were not in the wrong. Secondly, if anyone wants to burn Owen at the stake for making a funny statement then maybe you need to reassess your own values of living, friendship, and business. If the Apple Computer people who have been known for playing the funniest practical jokes ever (in a number of bio's I have read about the corporation and the people there) can no longer take a joke or they are now in the job of penalizing someone for being the object of a practical joke then things are on a sadder note than most of us even realized and the appliance syndrome really has affected everyone there. Whether you (whoever you may be at Apple that feels Owen was publicly stating a tendency toward pirate activites) are, I certainly hope that you will find a funny bone somewhere still alive in your body and take my post for what it was. If you attack Owen for my joke (which I have stated was not meant as anything besides a joke) then you are projecting an image of a system that no longer cares about their people one iota. Finally, I want to point out to the net in general that I have stayed away from the discussion (piracy) because it is a no win proposition, no matter what side you are on. There will always be people that figure out a reason to justify piracy, no matter what you say. I, myself, have seen my own work pirated. No one is immune. EOL Todd South -- UUCP: {nosc, uunet!cacilj, sdcsvax, hplabs!hp-sdd, sun.COM} ...!crash!pnet01!pro-nsfmat!pro-pac!tsouth ARPA: crash!pnet01!pro-nsfmat!pro-pac!tsouth@nosc.MIL INET: tsouth@pro-pac.CTS.COM - BITNET: pro-pac.UUCP!tsouth@PSUVAX1
rewing@Apple.COM (Richard Ewing) (06/28/89)
The only problem about making jokes on the net is that written text often cannot include the speech and facial inflections that some jokes require, even with such standard :-) faces. Well, I always keep a pair of flame retardent underwear on, just in case it happens. And yes, that *is* a joke. --Rick Ewing Apple Atlanta