Piracy and the FPGA discussion

Hey cctalkers, I decided to automatically router all mail from MS (ironic initials!) to my junk folders a long time ago. So why am I sending this on-list reply now? Many of you have read MS' rants against just about everything, and probably assumed they were just sarcasm or jokes because they're so ridiculous. Unfortunately, the dude is serious. Here are four examples from his web site at http://ivan.harhan.org/: 1. In the document at http://ivan.harhan.org/documents/911schoolpaper.txt titled "The Real Causes of the 9/11 Events" he states / refers to the following: - "The U.S. government is the worst gang of criminals to ever set foot on the surface of this planet, and it is fundamentally hostile to all life on Earth. It is fundamentally anti-people, and the people who happen to live inside America itself ("in the belly of the beast" as we say) are no different." - "worldwide Jewish conspiracy" - "In conclusion, we can see that one way or the other, by hook or by crook, the events of 9/11 are in the end the handiwork of the American capitalist shadow government" - he quotes from another essay that "Even as you righteously hate [the terrorists], you have to admire them for their genius." 2. In another essay, at a whopping 21,437 words (http://ivan.harhan.org/documents/2003-05-briefing-doc.txt), he refers in the first sentence to an email "in which I described what I know or suspect regarding the ET colonial power that is currently holding us in slavery and has been doing so for the past several millennia" -- and then uses the next 21,400 words to justify that belief. 3. At http://ivan.harhan.org/documents/immortality-briefing.pdf he's got a supposed CIA document titled "Top Secret UFO Sensitive Area" in which it's claimed that secret government research has overcome human mortality based on knowledge from aliens. 4. Finally, there's my favorite part, the web page located at http://ivan.harhan.org/Internationale/. On this page it's stated that "Interplanetary Internationale is a union of people of all races and nationalities dedicated to total liberation of Earth from all oppressive and occupying forces, to guarantee every person or sentient being the inalienable rights of life, liberty, integrity of body and spirit and realisation of happiness. Our interplanetary aspect rests in our understanding of our role in the exopolitical theatre of interplanetary space. We do not seek to occupy or colonise any other planets. Instead we offer our friendship, solidarity and cooperation to people from any other planet who uphold the same sacred principles of the inalienable rights of every sentient being, and who choose to join forces with us against the common enemies of life." Okay, Evan talking again... a person's political beliefs are irrelevant to his knowledge of vintage computing. But do us all a favor, MS, and take your shit back to whichever of these other planets you came from. Or for a less expensive solution, seek some professional therapy. Don't waste your time flaming me because, as I said, I used Microsoft Outlook on Windows XP (oh, don't you hate these tools being used against you?) to create a rule forwarding all your mail to my junk folder. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jay West Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 1:28 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Piracy and the FPGA discussion MS wrote... Ok, that's over the line. We here on classiccmp pride ourselves on respecting copyrights, intellectual property, software licensing, and the like. I know that the vast majority, probably all... of the people on this list try very hard to work WITH the manufacturers and authors to obtain hobbyist use licenses, abiding by those licenses, and respecting the manufacturers/authors when for whatever reason they decide not to allow a hobbyist license (or comitting a work to the public domain). We play by the rules. Perhaps a better approach would have been for you to call the software author, and work with them to get some things opensourced. I'm sure several people on the list would have been interested in helping you with that. Make a compelling case to them. It can sometimes work, and our hobby looks better for it. Michael, by doing what you have done and even more importantly (to me) by publicly posting about it here, you have tarnished the very open source, hobbyist license, free use environment which you claim to champion. Simply put, your actions are hurting the rest of us. Quite frankly, we don't want your actions in this matter associated with our group. I have privately warned you about posts to this list a few times, so now the warning is public. Your moderation flag has been turned on, so all your posts will be subject to moderation until such time as I feel it is no longer necessary. Jay West Classiccmp.Org classiccmp list owner