🚀 go-pugleaf

On 12 Oct 1998 20:31:19 GMT, unruh@physics.ubc.ca (Bill Unruh) wrote:

>In <36213b4a.7759144@news.concentric.net> darrow@oneillaw.com (M O'Neill) writes:
>
>>>And it
>>>is the "total destruction of modern commercial society if such contracts
>>>are found to be illegal" 
>
>>considering that such contracts have already been found to be illegal,
>>it's dubious that any court is going to find much merit in such an
>>argument.
>
>Great. However, my faith in the courts is not quite as great as yours.

I don't have any particular faith in any particular court for any
particular case.  But by and large, they get the job done.

>For example the "Look and Feel" cases which made it through the courts(
>and Destroyed the VP company which produced a great spreadsheet-- I
>still use it-- in the late 80s). Plus the willingness of some courts to

I've never studied the look and feel cases, but my impression is that
by and large they have been unsuccessful.  And keep in mind that while
we're generally bashing M$, wasn't it Apple who sued M$
(unsuccessfully) for stealing the "look and feel" of the McIntosh
interface?

>uphold shrinkwrapped licenses.  Judges unfortunatley(?) are humans, and
>power and fear of the consequences of their actions can affect them.
>Once they have decided, they can always find arguments to back up their
>decision, no matter what it is. Or are you arguing that social practice
>never influences the decisions of the courts?

Of course it does, all the time.