ozymandias G desiderata [really?] wrote: > Of course, this would be a different story if the web of trust were in > more common usage, but it's not, outside of debian-maintainers and > some small klatches of die-hard cypherpunks, some of whom are too > paranoid to admit who they know anyway.
Besides Morpheus, Neo, and Trinity, of course... :-) > Sorry for the off-topicness, but you pushed one of my buttons, Hubert. > > Forrest L Norvell, > GnuPG key available upon request ;) At the risk of going further off-topic, your non-de-plume reminded me of a poignant prophetic priceless parody you've probably never seen unless you participated in the VM Group of SHARE, Inc. during the late 1980s when IBM began its move away from mainframe source code distribution (OCO--Object Code Only). I found it again in the VMSHARE Archives at Princeton... File: MEMO HUMOR90 Append on 04/13/90 at 23:16 by Donna Walker, VM New User Project, 301/564-0300: In cleaning out my office at home, I ran across the following which was just too good to pass up! I couldn't find a date, though I'd put it somewhere after 1982! :-) *--------------------------------------------------------------------------* P.B.S. Nixes O.C.O. Popular Poet Pooh-poohs Pusillanimous Program Protection Policy Percy Bysshe Shelley, long silent on matters of concern to the computer industry, has just announced a new release of "Ozymandias," his well-known commentary on the transience and futility of unchecked power. Typically, he has placed in the public domain the entire source for the new release, which we publish with the original for update and maintenance purposes. Ozymandias O.C.O. Madness (Ozymandias, Release 2) I met a traveler from an I met a former client of Big antique land Blue Who said: "Two vast and Who said: "Our vast but trunkless legs of stone sourceless tapes of code Stand in the desert. Near Mold in the archive. Near them, on the sand, them, molding too, Half sunk, a shattered visage Lie heaps of salvage hardware, lies, whose frown, once so proud And wrinkled lip, and sneer of To run those systems now cold command, eclipsed from view. Tell that its sculptor well Our refuse tells how well we those passions read read the cost Which yet survive (stamped on Of waiting for "the fix." Old these lifeless things), software thugs The hand that mocked them and Were stymied, true; old the heart that fed; customers were lost. And on the pedestal these On distribution tapes these words appear: words appear: 'My name is Ozymandias, king 'My name's O.C.O. Madness, of kings; King of Bugs; Look on my works, ye Mighty, View not my source, just run and despair!' me, sans repair!' Nothing beside remains. Round Nothing beside remains. Our the decay revenues Of that colossal wreck, Now go to vendors not allied boundless and bare with SHARE The lone and level sands For living systems we can mold stretch far away." and use." *--------------------------------------------------------------------------* *** APPENDED 04/13/90 23:16:40 BY $NU ***