I have only just realised that the original thread to which I posted a
message on 28 July 2007:
* teco, rms, gosling, mocklisp, ... wasRe: Xah's Edu Corner: The
Modernization
of Emacs
<http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/browse_thread/thread/
5b19382493ae549b?hl=en>
appears to have been somehow hijacked to the group comp.emacs to which
I have not subscribed:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.emacs/browse_thread/thread/5b19382493ae549b/c9192029df0df51a?hl=en
I am therefore re-posting this message to comp.lang.lisp. See
"Integrity of CLL Posts" below.
MESSAGE 10 August 2007
=====================
On 31 July 2007, I emailed Guy Steele, drawing his attention to RMS'
response in my post of 28 July 2007, to Kent Pitman's reported
recollection attributing authorship of the idea to associate TECO
macros with keystrokes to Steele. Dr. Steele replied on 7 August 2007,
indicating that Pitman had already contacted him, that he (Steele) had
consulted some of his old notes on EMACS, and that he concurred with
RMS' response. Steele said:
> Thanks for the message. In fact, Mr. Pitman contacted me
> as well and we have had an exchange of email concerning
> this bit of history, and I consulted some of my old notes
> on EMACS.
>
> Except for the trivial fact that RMS seems to have accidentally
> misspelled my name, I agree with everything in his response
> as quoted below.
>
> Yours,
> Guy Steele
I digress, here, to apologize to Dr. Steele for misspelling his name,
being the poster and being accordingly responsible for failing to
check the message for typographical errors.
I also received email from Pitman on 8 August. Pitman advised me that
he had received a reply from Steele, which he would post that evening,
and invited me to follow-up on "any open issues or whatever".
THE FACTS
==========
First, it is hardly necessary to point out that EMACS is a globally
revered editor/IDE (approaching an operating system) respected by many
with almost quasi-religious fervour - and is the envy of many a
developer. Had I, myself, been privileged to have had the opportunity
to make any suggestion whatsoever (however offhand) that contributed
to the conception, implementation or development of EMACS, I would -
without doubt - have retained a distinct, precise, cherished, and
enduring memory of such a suggestion. So would Guy Steele, and hence
his ability to confirm his role in the development of EMACS as:
"... principally to forge a consensus on a standard command set. I
also started an implementation of the EMACS command set, but RMS took
it over ..." (above, Pitman, 8 August, quoting email from Steele sent
6 August 2007).
RMS concurs in his article "The EMACS Full-Screen Editor", [5] and
clarifies in his response posted to this thread that he worked
together with Steele for one night, after which Steele dropped out.
As regards the development of the TECO Control_R feature mentioned by
Steele, this is the TECO real-time editing mode to which RMS referred
in his response. TECO's original Control_R feature was authored by
former MIT AI hacker Carl Mikkelsen (CMM) [6] [7] [8] and later
developed by Eugene Ciccarelli (ECC) in the construction of a video-
terminal line editor on Multics.[4, para. III] The Control_R feature
was unreliable and painfully slow; RMS transformed this feature
sometime in about 1974, integrating his ideas for WYSIWYG
functionality after being inspired by the Stanford AI Lab's E program,
making Control_R mode efficient and usable. [6] [7] [8]
In his paper "Multics Emacs: The History, Design and
Implementation"[4] Multics Emacs author Bernard S. Greenberg
discussed the significant advances in editor technology introduced by
the development of Control_R to associate TECO macros with keystrokes
allowing editor developers to redefine sets of keys for specific
editing tasks, resulting in the proliferation of powerful TECO macro
packages (TMACS and TECMAC). Greenberg said :
"At this time Richard Stallman coalesced most of the ideas in these
packages ..." [4, para. II] acknowledging Stallman:
"... for developing the entire concept of Emacs, and offering fervid
and enthusiastic support from the first day."[4, para. X]
Other sources concur, crediting RMS for re-implementing the originally
ineffective Control_R feature, which eventually resulted in an
explosion of MIT AI hacker innovation. In his January 1990 email to
the Usenet group alt.folklore.computers, IMAP inventor Mark Crispin
recounted his knowledge of the history of EMACS gained while working
at MIT in the summer of 1976: [3]
"When [Stallman] returned to MIT he implemented [sic] so-called '^R
mode' ... Although ^R mode made a whole new style of editing
possible ... it was still rather primitive ... Two major sets of TECO
macro packages ...developed; TECMAC and TMACS. ... By New Years in
1977 EMACS had made significant inroads against TECMAC/TMACS; and in
another year or so the older editors had both succumbed to software
rot."
Stallman's prodigious innovation to save and retrieve macro shortcuts
on file transformed TECO to a user-programmable WYSIWYG editor. RMS'
revision of the Control_R feature now gave the user the freedom to
redefine any key combination, at will. As Steele, himself,
acknowledged "That was the real breakthrough". [7]
These sources corroborate RMS' own account of how he authored the idea
of a user-programmable EMACS by making it possible for the user to
redefine key-chords for command execution. His idea had its genesis in
his exposure to the E program at Stanford's AI lab. His search for E-
like WYSIWYG functionality led to his re-implementation of
Mikkelsen's Control_R feature, and his idea flowered when he effected
a user-request for binding a couple of keys.
INFRINGEMENT
=============
On 30 July 2007, Kent Pitman <······@nhplace.com
<·············@nhplace.com>>wrote:
> It's just useful to know the actual truth about history, whatever that truth may be.
While, on 30 July 2007, David Kastrup <····@gnu.org
<···········@gnu.org>> wrote:
> We are not talking about "uninteresting" but about "irrelevant". It
> does not matter to the history of Emacs who exactly considered binding
> actions to some or every keystroke a good idea.
I would argue that the substantive issues at stake are not history and
relevance, but are the moral and legal questions deriving from
infringement of the right of attribution. An author's right of
attribution is protected under the appropriately termed "moral rights"
provisions enshrined by the International Berne Convention [1] to
which the United States is party, the US Congress having argued that
it is not necessary to explicitly include moral rights in the US
copyright code [2] because such rights are already recognized in
statutory and common law provisions for libel, defamation,
misrepresentation and so forth.
CLL members should always be aware that posting to a newsgroup is
communication to the general public that constitutes publication which
could be subject to legal action in the courts. Hallway discussions
are accordingly not recommended sources for publications that seek to
attribute authorship of an idea, which in this case is a significant
part of the montage of ideas underlying and expressed by EMACS.
INTEGRITY of CLL POSTS
====================
Following my post of 28 July 2007<http://groups.google.com/group/
comp.lang.lisp/browse_thread/thread/5b19382493ae549b?hl=en>
this thread was excluded from the comp.lang.lisp (CLL) home page as it
was not indexed under either the Topic Summary view (as an "Active
older topic") or the Topic List view. I also received no email
messages under my subscription to comp.lang.lisp that included the
messages from Pitman and Kastrup posted to the thread subsequent to my
28 July message.
This thread re-appeared briefly under "Active older topics" on
Wednesday 8 August 2007, after I emailed complaining about not being
able to see Pitman's post of which he advised me by private email. I
also noted at this time that the relevant pages appeared to be in the
process of being re-indexed as the thread, which had been absent from
both Pitman's and Kastrup's activities listed under "View Profile",
suddenly re-appeared. At one stage, Kastrup's profile listed only 12
posts, the only one to CLL listed being "Lambda calculus and it
relation to Lisp, October 7 2002".
The latter posting irregularities point to a failure of integrity in
the administration of CLL, a matter that Google must regard as being
contrary to their policies - and ultimately injurious.
agthompson
REFERENCES
===========
All urls were visited on the date of this posting.
1. Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works,
Sept. 9, 1886, as revised at Paris on July 24, 1971 and amended in
1979, S. Treaty Doc. No. 99-27 (1986), at http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/index.html.
2. Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988, 17 USC 10, at
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92appii.html#a2-11
3. Crispin, Mark, email to alt.folklore.computers, 19 January 1990, at
http://www.djmnet.org/lore/emacs-origin.txt.
4. Greenberg, Bernard, S., 'Multics Emacs: The History, Design and
Implementation', 15 August 1979, at http://www.multicians.org/mepap.html.
5. Stallman, Richard, 'The EMACS Full-Screen Editor' (1987), at
http://www.lysator.liu.se/history/garb/txt/87-1-emacs.txt.
6. Wikipedia, 'EMACS', at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emacs
7. Williams, Sam, 'Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for
Free Software' (Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2002), 6, at
http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch06.html.
8. Lin, Yuwei, 'Epistemologically Multiple Actor-Centered Systems: or,
EMACS at work!', Ubiquity (Association for Computer Machinery), Volume
5 Issue 1, February 25 - March 2, 2004, at http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/v5i1_lin.html.
For the record, my original reply on this issue was posted only to
comp.emacs based on my belief that this wasn't even an interesting
issue to comp.lang.lisp. That's why it may have appeared lost.
I'm not a big fan of cross-posting; see here for details:
http://www.nhplace.com/kent/PFAQ/cross-posting.html
However, since the issue has been raised that it might be of interest
to this group, rather than repost my reply, it's in:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.emacs/msg/c9192029df0df51a
Since there was mention of possibly excluding threads from indexing
in some situations I didn't entirely understand, the relevant
message-id is: <·············@nhplace.com>
The post to the other group contained additional data from private
communication with Steele that might be interesting to people who like
early trivia about emacs, but the substance of the introduction by
me was:
| I double-checked with Steele, who concurs Stallman's reply, so I would
| certainly accept that combined agreement as superior to any belief I
| had, and am happy to have this chance to correct and clarify the record.
Regarding the introduction of legal issues into this forum where none
seem to me to be called for (since the matter was, as is proper,
resolved by what appeared to me to be reasonably amicable
conversational communication), I note simply that my remarks were not
made in any attempt to deny anyone's formal claim to attribution, but
rather to keep an index finger into history at a point where I
personally had witnessed some confusion on the matter. It was a
passing remark in a conversation, and no one made any mention of it at
all that I was aware of for a long time. Then when viper asked for
more details on that confusion, I inquired in more depth, got better
data, and posted that, correcting my prior statement, again as a part
of that ongoing conversation. I didn't do that for any legal reason,
since he hadn't raised all of this legal stuff at the time. I did it
because I had as keen an interest in the record being correct as
anyone.
And, as my post cited above indicates, the matter is resolved as far
as I can tell since there is no longer any disagreement on any
substantive point that I'm aware of.
And I personally think the historical record is more solid for having
had the interchange, and especially because the interchange happened
prior to any sort of alleging of legal issues so that my correction
was not tainted by any appearance that I might have been pressured in
some way to concede a point I didn't in fact believe.
- - - - -
Incidentally, as to the material question of denying attribution, I
want to make just a couple of remarks. The original remark I made,
WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE FACTUALLY IN ERROR AND WHICH I'VE CORRECTED
(sorry for looking like I'm yelling, which was not my intent, but
I just didn't want that phrase to get overlooked), used the wording
"the idea of associating TECO macros with keystrokes was due
to Guy Steele. Stallman implemented Steele's idea". And I'd like to
point out that US Code Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 102(b)
as found, for example, here:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000102----000-.html
says:
| (b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of
| authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of
| operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form
| in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in
| such work.
Since my remarks (even incorrect, as they turned out to be) were about
ideas, and since ideas are not copyrightable, I'm at a loss to
understand exactly what copyrighted work we could be talking about.
I'm not a lawyer, but I would assume a material element in such cases
would be that in order to deny someone's right to attribution as
author, you'd have to know that any copyrighted document was in
question, since otherwise how would you know to take due care in
speaking about it? If you're saying that one must protect oneself
against all possible statements which might implicate works they
didn't even know about, that's an incredibly strong statement and I
can't believe it is a good standard of care to promote. It says that
no one without perfect knowledge of everything done everywhere should
ever speak on any topic. (This is similar to the issue of software
patents, where "independent creation" is an infringement rather than a
defense, which seems crazy to me as well. See
http://www.nhplace.com/kent/PFAQ/software-patents.html for my
elaborated thoughts on that.) In this particular case, my remarks
were about the "ideas" surrounding the original TECO-based EMACS, not
about anything to do with a work that I knew (or even now know) to be
copyrighted. (Which I emphasize is no attempt on my part to deny that
it is--I simply have no affirmative knowledge on the subject.)
If someone thinks or knows original TECO-based EMACS to be
copyrighted, patented, or otherwise covered by intellectual property
protection, could they just for my general information, so I don't
accidentally spread misinformation, please outline the nature of that
intellectual property protection of which they seem to expect me to
magically know. That would be a big help to me. You know--things
like when it was first published and with what notice (if any),
whether it was registered with the US copyright office and when, etc.
I don't recall ever seeing copyrights on the Emacs sources back then,
but maybe I'm just misremembering--that has been known to happen. For
example, the TECO sources from 1983 (when Emacs was into four-digit
version numbers, so certainly not the earliest published versions of
Emacs, just the oldest ones I had easy access to today when I went to
look) seem to carry this header:
; -*-MIDAS-*-
; NOTE: A CONFIG.MID file is used to customize TECO to a site.
;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
;ITS TECO was built by RMS on the work of others
;at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab
;(not to be confused with the Laboratory for Computer Science).
;It was converted to run on Twenex by MMCM at SRI.
;
;TECO is available to those who like the way it is,
;on a basis of communal co-operation:
;you are welcome to make improvements, but only if you consult
;with the other user sites, and send your changes
;to MIT to be merged in and distributed to everyone.
That's not a copyright notice as I understand one, but I'm open to an
explanation of why I should construe it as one, or an explanation of why
copyright notices didn't matter prior to 1978, which is when I assume
Emacs was first published--maybe I'm wrong on that, too. The point is:
if you want people to be aware of where they are stepping on someone's
toes, exactly how do you recommend they find out about the notion that
they are in fact doing so?
I also looked in files like EMACS1;EINIT 272 (file creation date
uncertain due to where I obtained it and the fact that it had been
through some zipping that destroyed the original file date) and I
don't see a copyright notice there either. Yes, after 1978, that
isn't supposed to matter, but I thought Emacs was older than that,
and dated to the times when (I thought) things fell instantly into
the public domain if proper notice was not attached. Am I wrong
on that, too? Just curious. For example:
| NOTE: Before 1978, federal copyright was generally secured by the
| act of publication with notice of copyright, assuming compliance
| with all other relevant statutory conditions. U. S. works in the
| public domain on January 1, 1978, (for example, works published
| without satisfying all conditions for securing federal copyright
| under the Copyright Act of 1909) remain in the public domain under
| the 1976 Copyright Act.
Source: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html
Again, I'm not saying that these things are or are not copyrighted,
I'm asking how, if they are, one would know it in order to know that
special care was required in talking about them--if indeed it is.
Because to me, the absence of apparent notice on relevant files was at
least confusing, but I'm sure you can set me straight on all that.
Please treat all of the above as questions, not assertions, I'm just
trying to provide you with the best information I can about why I'm
asking these questions, and to make sure to get the best knowledge
from others insofar as they have it to offer.
- - - - -
On the more general issue of situations like this:
I happen to think it would be a travesty of incalculable proportion if
people became persuaded that questions and discussions, even about
matters of purported fact, could not be raised without fear of
heavy-duty legal machinery being rolled out to suppress such speech or
retaliate against it. Discussion here is, by the nature of the forum,
offered as opinion, and must never be confused with peer-reviewed or
fact-checked journalism; peer review and fact checking, to the extent
it happens at all in this medium (which tolerates a fair number of
outright misstatements that go unchallenged), happens after the fact,
through discussion. Posts to this forum are not formal publications.
This is a discussion forum. To raise the standard of care for posts
to this group to the degree required for formal publication would be
to stifle it unduly, and so I suggest that considerable care should be
used in suggesting that such legal machinery is ever, not just in this
case, appropriate in forums of this kind.
It has long been a source of great concern to me that the period of
time between the mid-twentieth century and the birth of the web (which
I personally date to the Shoemaker-Levy comet event because that was
the first time I personally ever saw a story on the web before I saw
it on TV, and I thought that heralded something important) is only
lightly documented online. At some point, due to global indexing
(Altavista, Google, Yahoo, and the like) and the Internet Archive
(Archive.org), there is a reasonable chance that modern human history
exists in a replicated form that is less subject to a single point of
failure catastrophe than it might have been prior to that time, and
such replication hopefully avoids certain classes of potential bit rot
as well. However, the period of time from, let's say, 1950 to, let's
say, 1994 is archived primarily on paper and obscure format magnetic
media (much of which is hard to find readers for any more), and my
concern has been that, looking back from the future, seeing the early
history of the web will be like trying to see the Big Bang in physics.
People can build ways of viewing archive.org back to the beginning,
but none of that will explain where the web itself came from since the
web did not exist to record itself prior. Rather, it is dependent on
manual backfilling by uploading what is known.
(For example, I have worked to make my personal papers available online
to fill in some of that missing record, and I have advocated privately
to others in my sphere of influence that they do likewise.)
Looking back, there were originally no newsgroups in which to discuss
things, so there was nothing but hallways in which to have some very
important discussions. Consequently, any sense of those conversations
will be lost if those who were privy to those issues do not speak
about what they have seen, and if every public forum is treated as
professional quality publication such that there is no forum in which
people are free to simply convey their impressions.
I've personally spent a fair amount of my free time over a fair number
of years helping people to see various aspects of history that I was
lucky enough to see, and I have routinely asserted that others (even
those who disagree with me) should chime in if they have recollections
since sometimes different people saw different things, sometimes
people's memories fade or fail or require refreshing, and sometimes
just a different point of view on a set of facts that are agreed upon
can be helpful in putting things in a proper historical light.
The fact of a particular statement in such a venue by me (or, I would
hope, by anyone) is not an attempt to, by single-minded force of
personal will, force things to be other than they are. Rather, it is
to contribute to the public dialog that which is all any of us have to
offer: our own memories, our own analyses, that which is personal to
us and which will be lost as our brain tissue becomes inaccessible and
decays when we die. In my opinion, it should be up to the public, not
the individual speaker, to decide the relevance and significance of
what a given person says; to say that each speaker must know, in advance
of a statement, what the historical significance of that statement is
before he or he should make it seems far too great a burden.
I have never alleged that everything I say is unassailable truth; all
I can do is what any person can do, which is to try to be fair, and,
if challenged on points of fact, try to make a good faith effort to
cite references, check facts, etc. I think that should be enough for
anyone.
The people who built the Internet, and the computational technologies
that surround it, are now aging (as are we all), and any information
they have to share now should be recorded, not excluded, and can be
studied at leisure by those who live on once it is part of the
continuing, inspectable record. I think the truth will get sorted out
better by confusions being out in view now, while relevant players
live, rather than suppressed to individuals' private notes and records
that might only come out after the deaths of the same players, and
then in no way are subject to open questioning.
So to use the Berne Convention in the way suggested here would seem to
me to be a horrifyingly chilling thing to do to free speech
everywhere, and something that would serve no one. I have always
assumed that the right to claim authorship was a right of speech (for
example, a right not to be sued for speaking truth), not a right
against someone else's speech (a right to restrain others from
speaking opinion, even documentably incorrect opinion), and it
horrifies me to think that such a tool might be used in what I
perceive to be so negative a way.
To suggest that someone who has a belief, a question, an alternate
experience, or just a misunderstanding should clam up for fear of
someone invoking copyright infringement as a heavy-weight legal
alternative to a mere posting of a factual correction seems out of
scale in the extreme. It also denies others who would like to hear
such discussion the right to hear both the claims and counterclaims,
which impoverishes the community generally. See my
http://www.nhplace.com/kent/PFAQ/freedom-to-hear.html for more
elaboration of this particular philosophy.
Are there occasions where someone might make a misstatement that
confuses people? Certainly. But, on a societal level, I'd rather
risk that than risk people not making possibly-correct statements out
of fear that they could not fully document them, especially when
sometimes the confirmation of an uncertain statement might come from
distributed sources, and, as well, when a publicly made misstatement
might expose a confusion that is widely privately held and where the
party holding correct information is unaware that public correction
would be of use.
And anyway, to my understanding (and I'm not a lawyer--did I say that
already?--so this, like all content of this post, is just my personal
opinion), a key principle underlying the issues of libel law at all is
the notion that the one doing the "publishing" might have unfair
access to a publishing medium that is not shared by the party about
which the statement is made, and the libel law exists to level the
playing field so that someone remarked about, not having access to the
medium in question, can have some mechanism of recourse. (This, as I
understand it, explains why there is an elevated standard for public
figures who are alleged to be libeled, because the test of their being
a public figure is said to be that if they were to call a press
conference, someone would come. And hence, they have access to a
means of responding in kind.) On usenet, the ability to respond is
simply not in play. Anyone has access, and so anyone can respond.
And in such cases, my understanding of the Supreme Court's much quoted
advice is that the preferred answer to "bad speech" (if that's what
you perceive mine or anyone's to be) is "more speech" (that is, direct
counterpoint in the same venue/medium or one of comparable nature).
And additionally, the notion that merely stating a personal opinion on
a matter in an opinion/discussion forum is equivalent to actively
suppressing someone's rights seems to me far-fetched and
inappropriate. (Not that courts and legislatures have not done
far-fetched and inappropriate things, but I am not obliged to
automatically endorse such things as near-fetched (is that a word?)
nor appropriate.)
In the end, if the public cannot sort out truth from non-truth in a
discussion forum, or even just satisfy itself with the common sense
observation that that not every statement made in such a discussion is
known to be reliable, then we have bigger problems to sort out than
issues of copyright. (Nor do I see any evidence that more rigorous
application of copyright laws will get us closer to having a more
discerning public capable of sorting out such truth.)
This entire post is just one person's opinion. Other opinions are, as
usual, welcome. (It's not my forum to police anyway--it's a free
speech forum.) But, for now, this will be my final statement on this
subthread. I've said what I have to say--and it's taken me longer
than I wish to say it (for which I apologize strongly--I just didn't
know how to properly answer the remarks made in the prior post without
going into at least a bit of detail).
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> wrote:
+---------------
| I also looked in files like EMACS1;EINIT 272 (file creation date
| uncertain due to where I obtained it and the fact that it had been
| through some zipping that destroyed the original file date) and I
| don't see a copyright notice there either. Yes, after 1978, that
| isn't supposed to matter, but I thought Emacs was older than that,
| and dated to the times when (I thought) things fell instantly into
| the public domain if proper notice was not attached. Am I wrong
| on that, too? Just curious. For example:
|
| | NOTE: Before 1978, federal copyright was generally secured by the
| | act of publication with notice of copyright, assuming compliance
| | with all other relevant statutory conditions. U. S. works in the
| | public domain on January 1, 1978, (for example, works published
| | without satisfying all conditions for securing federal copyright
| | under the Copyright Act of 1909) remain in the public domain under
| | the 1976 Copyright Act.
|
| Source: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html
...
| So to use the Berne Convention in the way suggested here would
| seem to me to be a horrifyingly chilling thing to do to free speech
| everywhere, and something that would serve no one.
+---------------
And besides, the U.S. wasn't even a signatory to the Berne Convention
until 1989:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works
...
The United States refused initially to become a party to the
Convention, since it would have required major changes in its
copyright law (particularly with regard to moral rights, removal
of general requirement for registration of copyright works as
well as elimination of mandatory copyright notice). However,
on March 1, 1989, the US "Berne Convention Implementation Act
of 1988" came into force and the United States became a party
to the Berne Convention.
...
So there!! ;-} ;-}
-Rob
p.s. For those who don't know what the issue is, under the Berne
Convention no formal copyright notice or registration is necessary
[though it makes prosecution a lot easier] -- all "works" are
"born copyrighted":
Copyright under the Berne Convention must be automatic; it is
prohibited to require formal registration (note however that
when the United States joined the Convention in 1988, they
continued to make statutory damages and attorney's fees only
available for registered works).
-----
Rob Warnock <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
On Sun, 12 Aug 2007 21:31:06 -0500, ····@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) wrote:
>p.s. For those who don't know what the issue is, under the Berne
>Convention no formal copyright notice or registration is necessary
>[though it makes prosecution a lot easier] -- all "works" are
>"born copyrighted":
>
> Copyright under the Berne Convention must be automatic; it is
> prohibited to require formal registration (note however that
> when the United States joined the Convention in 1988, they
> continued to make statutory damages and attorney's fees only
> available for registered works).
Copyright may be automatic under the law, but the fact is that it is
difficult to enforce an unregistered copyright in any country and
virtually impossible to enforce an anonymous work even with a proven
chain of custody.
George
--
for email reply remove "/" from address
On Aug 12, 6:07 pm, Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> wrote:
> Incidentally, as to the material question of denying attribution, I
> want to make just a couple of remarks. The original remark I made,
> WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE FACTUALLY IN ERROR AND WHICH I'VE CORRECTED ...
To recap, this thread concerns infringement of RMS' right to
attribution for the idea to bind keystrokes to TECO macros, as it
affects his legacy as author in the medley of ideas integral to EMACS.
On 12 August May 2007, Kent Pitman retracted his statement of 20 May
2007 misattributing the aforementioned idea to Guy Steele, conceding
that he was factually in error. Readers should note that unless
expressly stated otherwise, my posts to this thread are my own
personal views and do not represent those of RMS.
Mr. Pitman appears to have misread my message of 10 August, which
might not have been sufficiently clear. My identification of the issue
at stake as being the right of attribution does not rely on the moral
rights doctrine enshrined in the Berne Convention. Infringement of the
right of attribution provides a cause of action not exclusive to
copyright law, or indeed to the domain of so-called intellectual
property law. The fact of this nonexclusivity is evident in the
decision of the US Congress to accede to the Berne Convention without
explicitly providing for the moral rights doctrine within the US
copyright code (1988). Congress recognized that protections for moral
rights were sufficiently addressed by statutory and common-law
provisions for libel, defamation, misrepresentation and so on. Remedy
for infringement of an author's right to attribution, whether of
ideas, or of the copyrighted expression of ideas, would accordingly
lie in these latter-mentioned statutory and common-law provisions.
The US Congress specifically noted such provisions citing, inter alia,
section 43 (a) of the Lanham Act (U.S. Code Title 15, Section 1125 (a)
(1)(A), which prior to Dastar Corp. v Twentieth Century Fox Film
Corp., 539 U.S. 23 (2003) was often used in claims protecting the
right of attribution:
"Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or
any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name,
symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false
designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or
false or misleading representation of fact, which ... is likely to
cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the
affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another
person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her
goods, services ..."
My reference to the Berne Convention evidently sought not to infer
remedy for the infringement in question as lying in copyright law, but
to associate an author's right of attribution with morality. Copyright
does not protect ideas themselves, but the expression of ideas in some
tangible form. In referring to the "appropriately termed" moral rights
doctrine of the Berne Convention (which prescribes the right to
attribution) I sought only to underscore that moral values inhere in
the obligation to recognize an author's right of attribution, as
infringement may cause him to suffer injury to his honour and
reputation, and that this fact enjoys global recognition.
I too have high regard for Mr. Pitman's contributions of time and
expertise to Lisp education and to CLL in particular. As project
editor of X3J13, which drew up the ANSI Common Lisp Standard, his guru-
leadership status in the Lisp Community is firmly established. Those
who are privileged to assume the mantle of leadership, however, also
incur additional obligations and accordingly bear the greatest
responsibility for actions that will impact the communities they
influence.
With regard to Pitman's reference to possibilities of invoking "heavy-
weight legal alternative[s]" I have no locus standi nor am I an agent
of RMS, whose opinion of my posts to this thread further to that of 28
July 2007 is that I am belabouring the issue. There is therefore no
intent to roll out "heavy-duty legal machinery", nor do I propose to
dissect the legal argument further. Having succeeded in making the
above-mentioned points, until I become as proficient in Lisp as Mr.
Pitman is, I can ill afford the time to indulge in uneventful
discourses in law - and of course should I embark on such a course,
there is always the possibility that the thread might be hijacked to
comp.law. :-)
Now to get back to those dicey nested backquotes ....
agthompson
What a hoser. (Intentional top-post.)
On Aug 15, 7:45 am, viper-2 <········@mail.infochan.com> wrote:
> To recap, this thread concerns infringement of RMS' right to
> attribution for the idea to bind keystrokes to TECO macros, as it
> affects his legacy as author in the medley of ideas integral to EMACS.
> On 12 August May 2007, Kent Pitman retracted his statement of 20 May
> 2007 misattributing the aforementioned idea to Guy Steele, conceding
> that he was factually in error. Readers should note that unless
> expressly stated otherwise, my posts to this thread are my own
> personal views and do not represent those of RMS.
>
> Mr. Pitman appears to have misread my message of 10 August, which
> might not have been sufficiently clear. My identification of the issue
> at stake as being the right of attribution does not rely on the moral
> rights doctrine enshrined in the Berne Convention. Infringement of the
> right of attribution provides a cause of action not exclusive to
> copyright law, or indeed to the domain of so-called intellectual
> property law. The fact of this nonexclusivity is evident in the
> decision of the US Congress to accede to the Berne Convention without
> explicitly providing for the moral rights doctrine within the US
> copyright code (1988). Congress recognized that protections for moral
> rights were sufficiently addressed by statutory and common-law
> provisions for libel, defamation, misrepresentation and so on. Remedy
> for infringement of an author's right to attribution, whether of
> ideas, or of the copyrighted expression of ideas, would accordingly
> lie in these latter-mentioned statutory and common-law provisions.
>
> The US Congress specifically noted such provisions citing, inter alia,
> section 43 (a) of the Lanham Act (U.S. Code Title 15, Section 1125 (a)
> (1)(A), which prior to Dastar Corp. v Twentieth Century Fox Film
> Corp., 539 U.S. 23 (2003) was often used in claims protecting the
> right of attribution:
>
> "Any person who, on or in connection with any goods or services, or
> any container for goods, uses in commerce any word, term, name,
> symbol, or device, or any combination thereof, or any false
> designation of origin, false or misleading description of fact, or
> false or misleading representation of fact, which ... is likely to
> cause confusion, or to cause mistake, or to deceive as to the
> affiliation, connection, or association of such person with another
> person, or as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of his or her
> goods, services ..."
>
> My reference to the Berne Convention evidently sought not to infer
> remedy for the infringement in question as lying in copyright law, but
> to associate an author's right of attribution with morality. Copyright
> does not protect ideas themselves, but the expression of ideas in some
> tangible form. In referring to the "appropriately termed" moral rights
> doctrine of the Berne Convention (which prescribes the right to
> attribution) I sought only to underscore that moral values inhere in
> the obligation to recognize an author's right of attribution, as
> infringement may cause him to suffer injury to his honour and
> reputation, and that this fact enjoys global recognition.
>
> I too have high regard for Mr. Pitman's contributions of time and
> expertise to Lisp education and to CLL in particular. As project
> editor of X3J13, which drew up the ANSI Common Lisp Standard, his guru-
> leadership status in the Lisp Community is firmly established. Those
> who are privileged to assume the mantle of leadership, however, also
> incur additional obligations and accordingly bear the greatest
> responsibility for actions that will impact the communities they
> influence.
>
> With regard to Pitman's reference to possibilities of invoking "heavy-
> weight legal alternative[s]" I have no locus standi nor am I an agent
> of RMS, whose opinion of my posts to this thread further to that of 28
> July 2007 is that I am belabouring the issue. There is therefore no
> intent to roll out "heavy-duty legal machinery", nor do I propose to
> dissect the legal argument further. Having succeeded in making the
> above-mentioned points, until I become as proficient in Lisp as Mr.
> Pitman is, I can ill afford the time to indulge in uneventful
> discourses in law - and of course should I embark on such a course,
> there is always the possibility that the thread might be hijacked to
> comp.law. :-)
>
> Now to get back to those dicey nested backquotes ....
>
> agthompson
On 2007-08-15, viper-2 <········@mail.infochan.com> wrote:
> Mr. Pitman appears to have misread my message of 10 August, which
> might not have been sufficiently clear.
[ ... etc ... ]
Mr. Clapp decries Mr. 2's habit of replying directly to people and
then referring to them by last name and in the third person. Mr.
Clapp considers this silly and unneccessarily formal.
;)
To the party concerned:
It has come to our attention that on August 15, you posted a message
to a online forum hosted by Google Incorporated (henceforth Google),
regarding credibility and moral issues.
This is a excerpt of your passage:
�
From: viper-2 <········@mail.infochan.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: TECO, RMS, Gosling, Mocklisp
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 07:45:29 -0700
Message-ID: <························@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com>
...
With regard to Pitman's reference to possibilities of invoking "heavy-
weight legal alternative[s]" I have no locus standi nor am I an agent
of RMS, whose opinion of my posts to this thread further to that of 28
July 2007 is that I am belabouring the issue. There is therefore no
intent to roll out "heavy-duty legal machinery", nor do I propose to
dissect the legal argument further. Having succeeded in making the
above-mentioned points, until I become as proficient in Lisp as Mr.
Pitman is, I can ill afford the time to indulge in uneventful
discourses in law - and of course should I embark on such a course,
there is always the possibility that the thread might be hijacked to
comp.law. :-)
...
�
This letter is to inform you, that we, Xah Lee and associates, would
like to request permission to quote your passage cited above at the
following web address:
http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/Vocabulary_dir/new.html
The republication will contain only the above passage, and will be
centered around your use of the term "locus standi". We will also
include a web link to the original message on Google, and this clause
is not negotiable.
Your full coorporation will be appreciated.
Xah
···@xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/
On Aug 15, 10:09 pm, Xah Lee <····@xahlee.org> wrote:
> To the party concerned:
>
> It has come to our attention that on August 15, you posted a message
> to a online forum hosted by Google Incorporated (henceforth Google),
> regarding credibility and moral issues.
>
> This is a excerpt of your passage:
>
> �
> From: viper-2 <········@mail.infochan.com>
> Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
> Subject: Re: TECO, RMS, Gosling, Mocklisp
> Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 07:45:29 -0700
> Message-ID: <························@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com>
>
> ...
>
> With regard to Pitman's reference to possibilities of invoking "heavy-
> weight legal alternative[s]" I have no locus standi nor am I an agent
> of RMS, whose opinion of my posts to this thread further to that of 28
> July 2007 is that I am belabouring the issue. There is therefore no
> intent to roll out "heavy-duty legal machinery", nor do I propose to
> dissect the legal argument further. Having succeeded in making the
> above-mentioned points, until I become as proficient in Lisp as Mr.
> Pitman is, I can ill afford the time to indulge in uneventful
> discourses in law - and of course should I embark on such a course,
> there is always the possibility that the thread might be hijacked to
> comp.law. :-)
>
> ...
> �
>
> This letter is to inform you, that we, Xah Lee and associates, would
> like to request permission to quote your passage cited above at the
> following web address:http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/Vocabulary_dir/new.html
>
> The republication will contain only the above passage, and will be
> centered around your use of the term "locus standi". We will also
> include a web link to the original message on Google, and this clause
> is not negotiable.
>
> Your full coorporation will be appreciated.
>
> Xah
> ····@xahlee.org
> http://xahlee.org/
Xah Lee:
I respectfully decline to authorize your aforecited request to cite,
quote, or re-publish in any form or medium whatsoever, any text or
message, or part thereof, of which I am author.
Repeat:
Permission is expressly denied.
agthompson
agthompson aka viper-2 wrote:
�... Repeat: Permission is expressly denied.�
is that, like, "ACCESS DENIED"? If so, i'd like to invoke United State
Law of American (Which, let me remind you, is the most powerful human
animal group on this earth, and i'm a member thereof), that goes by
the name of "Fair Use". I don't think you have a chance.
However, i'm a kind man, and i would like to yield to your wishes. If,
you are also a kind man, and do not have a good reason to inflict
unnecessary displeasure on your comrades, then i suggest you rescind
your denial.
Xah
···@xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/
-----------------------
On Aug 15, 10:09 pm,XahLee <····@xahlee.org> wrote:
To the party concerned:
It has come to our attention that on August 15, you posted a message
to a online forum hosted by Google Incorporated (henceforth Google),
regarding credibility and moral issues.
This is a excerpt of your passage:
�
From: viper-2 <········@mail.infochan.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: TECO, RMS, Gosling, Mocklisp
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 07:45:29 -0700
Message-ID: <························@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com>
...
With regard to Pitman's reference to possibilities of invoking "heavy-
weight legal alternative[s]" I have no locus standi nor am I an agent
of RMS, whose opinion of my posts to this thread further to that of 28
July 2007 is that I am belabouring the issue. There is therefore no
intent to roll out "heavy-duty legal machinery", nor do I propose to
dissect the legal argument further. Having succeeded in making the
above-mentioned points, until I become as proficient in Lisp as Mr.
Pitman is, I can ill afford the time to indulge in uneventful
discourses in law - and of course should I embark on such a course,
there is always the possibility that the thread might be hijacked to
comp.law. :-)
...
�
This letter is to inform you, that we,XahLee and associates, would
like to request permission to quote your passage cited above at the
following web address:http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/Vocabulary_dir/
new.html
The republication will contain only the above passage, and will be
centered around your use of the term "locus standi". We will also
include a web link to the original message on Google, and this clause
is not negotiable.
Your full coorporation will be appreciated.
-----------------------
On Aug 16, 6:53 am, viper-2 <········@mail.infochan.com> wrote:
XahLee:
I respectfully decline to authorize your aforecited request to cite,
quote, or re-publish in any form or medium whatsoever, any text or
message, or part thereof, of which I am author.
Repeat:
Permission is expressly denied.
agthompson
On Aug 17, 2:21 pm, Xah Lee <····@xahlee.org> wrote:
> is that, like, "ACCESS DENIED"? If so, i'd like to invoke United State
> Law of American (Which, let me remind you, is the most powerful human
> animal group on this earth, and i'm a member thereof), that goes by
> the name of "Fair Use". I don't think you have a chance.
Xah:
At least you're having fun. Yes, we know about fair use. I'm
flattered, but no - you don't have my permission. Permission is
expressly denied.
This is my final message re your request. We're wasting resources by
the way.
agthompson
On Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:21:44 -0700, Xah Lee <···@xahlee.org> wrote:
>agthompson aka viper-2 wrote:
>�... Repeat: Permission is expressly denied.�
>
>is that, like, "ACCESS DENIED"? If so, i'd like to invoke United State
>Law of American (Which, let me remind you, is the most powerful human
>animal group on this earth, and i'm a member thereof), that goes by
>the name of "Fair Use". I don't think you have a chance.
>
>However, i'm a kind man, and i would like to yield to your wishes. If,
>you are also a kind man, and do not have a good reason to inflict
>unnecessary displeasure on your comrades, then i suggest you rescind
>your denial.
>
> Xah
> ···@xahlee.org
> http://xahlee.org/
>
Fair Use doesn't apply - the material is not news of public interest,
nor are you are using it privately for educational purposes, nor are
you a educator using it in a restricted classroom setting. The
educational provision of Fair Use does not allow publishing the
material in a public forum.
You asked and Thompson said "no". Drop it.
George
--
for email reply remove "/" from address
viper-2 wrote:
>
> I respectfully decline to authorize your aforecited request to cite,
> quote, or re-publish in any form or medium whatsoever, any text or
> message, or part thereof, of which I am author.
>
> Repeat:
> Permission is expressly denied.
>
> agthompson
>
You might want to sue my newsgroup provider as they are copying and
distributing the text of your message, for a fee.
Sacha
On 2007-08-18, Sacha <····@address.spam> wrote:
> viper-2 wrote:
>
>>
>> I respectfully decline to authorize your aforecited request to cite,
>> quote, or re-publish in any form or medium whatsoever, any text or
>> message, or part thereof, of which I am author.
>>
>> Repeat:
>> Permission is expressly denied.
>>
>> agthompson
>>
>
> You might want to sue my newsgroup provider as they are copying and
> distributing the text of your message, for a fee.
He can sue me too, because I used his copious production of hot air for
my thermal airship.
viper-2 wrote:
> With regard to Pitman's reference to possibilities of invoking "heavy-
> weight legal alternative[s]" I have no locus standi nor am I an agent
> of RMS, whose opinion of my posts to this thread further to that of 28
> July 2007 is that I am belabouring the issue.
I think he's right.
-dan
On Aug 15, 9:45 am, viper-2 <········@mail.infochan.com> wrote:
> My reference to the Berne Convention evidently sought not
> to infer remedy for the infringement in question as lying
> in copyright law, but to associate an author's right of
> attribution with morality.
The meanings of 'infer' and 'imply' ought to be investigated.