Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 2:33:02 CDT
From:
[email protected](Bob Izenberg)
Subject: File 1--Day (in court) of The Dead
>From:
Bandit, Shylock and Trackshoes
A Kinda Professional Corporation
>To:
Homo Sapiens
Dear Infringing Species,
It has come to our attention that you have been utilizing anatomical
developments pioneered by several of our clients, the dinosaurs, in your
everyday activities. This letter is to notify you that the dinosaurs
consider these features to be an infringement of dinosaur development,
which has been a documented fact in the scientific community for decades.
Said features are proprietary to the dinosaurs, and their duplication
represents a substantial harm to the saurian reputation and ability to
survive and thrive in a challenging evolutionary climate.
This letter is to formally advise you that the process of bipedal locomotion,
hereafter called "walking", is an activity the dinosaurs are prepared to
demonstrate that they have employed for thousands of years. Continued
use of your legs for locomotion on land will be considered actionable. In
addition, any evolutionary developments that you may have reason to believe
were first present in the dinosaurs must no longer be used by your species.
This includes all digestive and reproductive organs, and much of your
circulatory system. The dinosaurs will vigorously defend their hard-won
evolutionary developments by any and all means available to them, including
but not limited to injunctive relief, monetary damages, and gobbling alive,
against all members of your species and any evolutionary descendants.
We trust that you fully understand the dinosaur position on this matter.
Sincerely,
BB/file
Before you dismiss the imaginary letter above as completely without
relevance, consider the Bellcore letter to the editor of 2600 magazine that
was recently reprinted in these virtual pages. Also consider the early
snarls from AT&T lawyers directed at the authors of the BSD NET2 software
distribution. Those authors, you see, have written something much like the
UNIX operating system that AT&T markets, and have made the source code for
it available for one-tenth the cost of AT&T's version, and, in the case of
one version written specifically for the Intel 80386 processor, for free.
They have taken the first tentative bites out of the Thunder Lizard's food
supply, and the mad, unreasoning blood-lust that overcomes the dinosaur
at such moments cannot obscure the handwriting on the cave wall. Of course,
the day of the dinosaurs was long gone by the time that our species first
trod upon the Earth... but even in this day and age, a fossil living in a
museum can still get a good lawyer. The Dead rise up, and are sworn in.
It is a shame that the reputation for innovation that once was the
hallmark of AT&T and Bellcore has come to be so dominated by lawyers thriving
in at atmosphere of comparative technical innocence. The quest for product
viability and excellence may not have been abandoned, but in some sectors
it has been supplanted by a desire to seal the product up in a black box:
A black box that can't be explained, examined, or improved upon... just
paid for in perpetuity.
Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253
