🚀 go-pugleaf

wolfgang@wsrcc.com (Wolfgang S. Rupprecht) writes:
> jim@piggy.ucsb.edu (Jim Lick) writes:
> >The coherent ftp archives are now closed...
...
> >	Because of my strong feelings against this patent, I am hereby
> >withdrawing all of my support from Mark Williams Co, until they make a
> >commitment to donating the technology of this patent to the public
> >domain.

I understand and agree with Jim's reasoning.  However, Wolfgang goes on to
suggest a rather-more-extreme sort of action.  I'm not sure whether he was
being facetious; I think not.  I'll treat it as serious for the sake of
discussion.

> If certain computer companies want to actively promote non-cooperation
> by playing invalid patent games so be it.  I am quite willing to play
> along.  Here is my contribution to the cause:

> Until further notice, any usenet articles posted to or received by
> this machine for groups dealing with Coherent, Apple, or AT&T
> computers will be bit-bucketed...

For your own machine, of course you choose the groups--and there's no
reason you should carry groups you find inimical to your interests.  But as
a general approach, it could really screw up the usefulness of the net.
(Imminent dearth of USENET predicted?:-)  A few explorations...

1.  Where do you draw the line?  IBM's trying to get in bed with Apple, for
the express purpose of getting stuff covered by Apple copyrights, so do
you take that as "linkage" and dump all the IBMish groups?  Some folks are
very unhappy with Moto's drug attitude, so they might drop all the groups
that have anything to do with the 68k or 88k.  Do you drop the NeXT-related
groups?  How bad does a company need to be to get related newsgroups
dropped?  What about the hold that intel has on the PC market?  There are
folks who think they're using their near-monopoly to stifle progress--so
do you get rid of all groups related to the PC or intel processors?  It all
gets too tied up in political correctness unless you can draw a very con-
servative line.

2.  If you drop AT&T-related groups, does that mean you drop all of
comp.unix.*?  After all, any UNIX-based system means paying royalties
to AT&T.

3.  Does a loss in connectivity of a newsgroup really affect the associated
company?  Not much, I think--it more affects the customers.  You end up
punishing the wrong people.

Why not leave your newsgroup distribution as it is, but post to the groups
which concern you, explaining how the particular companies in question are
using software patents and/or user-interface copyrights to create problems?
(Saying something is probably better than encouraging silence.)
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...Simpler is better.