🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <9834@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
>My friend Julia Menapace (jcm@toad.com) was interviewed today by the
>FBI.  They told her over the phone that they were investigating the
>NuPrometheus affair last year, in which some person or persons released
>source code to part of the Apple Mac system software.  ...
>But when they arrived, they were interested in me, due to my
>connections with FSF.  They had plenty of misinformation both about me
>and about FSF, the most useless of which was the idea that I or FSF had
>anything to do with stealing Macintosh source code.

>Things are getting pretty bad when writing code for a free software
>organization makes you a target of an FBI investigation.

At the time of the NuPrometheus affair, I predicted (on the net) that
this could be big trouble and that it would be wise for a FSF to get a
spokesperson to dissociate themselves from the theft of Apple source.
Frankly, I thought my remarks were a little gratuitous in that the FSF
folks are clever enough and well-advised enough to have figured that
out for themselves.

The only response on the record was some remarks sympathetic to the
NuPrometheus theft by RMS in an interview (was it UNIX Today?) a few
months later.  Until, of course, John's denial that he or FSF had
anything to do with it, quoted above.  I am relieved to hear that,
believe me!  (I am not in personal contact with any FSF'ers, so have
no way of knowing except reading the written record.)

It may seem a foregone conclusion to you guys that you obviously has
nothing to do with it, and it may be a foregone conclusion to anyone
who knows you personally at all.  But from a distance, which is where
I and the FBI look from, it is not all that clear.  (This is all the
FBI and I have in common, I hasten to add.)

For God's sake, issue a press release saying that the FSF does not
condone violations of the intellectual property laws, or tolerate
anyone working within it who does violate such laws, and specifically
condemn the NuPrometheus theft.

While a member of the political left, I learned that trouble with the
FBI is 1) no joke; 2) largely preventable if you stay within the
exercise of your legitimate rights; and 3) make that clear to anyone
who does not hurry out of earshot.
-- 

Jeffrey Kegler, Independent UNIX Consultant, Algorists, Inc.
jeffrey@algor2.ALGORISTS.COM or uunet!algor2!jeffrey
1762 Wainwright DR, Reston VA 22090