Re: [OT] [JOB] mod_perl and Apache developers wanted

[Ed Phillips]

It is interesting and and somewhat ironic that the Engineering
dep at eToys is part of the open source community and culture
while their management's behavior was so disastrously misguided
and so misunderstanding of net culture and precedent.
They shot themselves in the foot pretty badly.

Would eToys have paid for the legal expenses of the Etoy group
if they weren't clued in by their Engineering department? Have
they learned a hard lesson?

Perrin is an exemplary figure, and I commiserate with him, but
some basic precedents of net culture need to be respected for the
network to function and the culture to flourish. If we had not
protested the attempted eToys domain grab, and I was one
who protested, they may have never recanted and  Etoy might
still be fighting at absurd personal cost.

Cheers,

Ed




Paul Singh wrote:

> Regardless of what eToys' intentions were, the way I see it, this was a case
> in which a billion dollar corporation (well, at least it was back then)
> filed suit against a handful of artists who had the etoy.com domain way
> before eToys came along.  eToys had no legitimate stake to the domain... and
> I don't associate legitimacy with the law... they seldom coincide.  So if
> this isn't a case of the bigger guy bullying the little guy, what is it?
> Granted, I have a distant association with the eToy crew so my opinions will
> be biased... however, even with staying to the facts and ignoring eToys'
> motivations, their actions alone reek of unfairness (at best).
>
> Of course, this says little of what type of work environment eToys is and
> the people that work there... but it does comment on the corporation and the
> people running it.
>
> But as you said, this is definitely off-topic, and I will cease further
> comment... take care.
>
> - jps
>
> > -Original Message-
> > From: Perrin Harkins [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > Sent: Friday, June 16, 2000 4:48 PM
> > To: Paul Singh
> > Cc: ModPerl Mailing List
> > Subject: RE: [OT] [JOB] mod_perl and Apache developers wanted
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Paul Singh wrote:
> > > While that may be true (as with many publications), I hope you're not
> > > denying the facts of this case
> >
> > The basic facts are correct: eToys received complaints from parents about
> > the content their children found on the etoy.com site and, after failing
> > to reach an agreement with the site's operators, filed a lawsuit involving
> > trademarks which led to etoy being ordered to shut down their site by a
> > judge.
> >
> > Slashdot's coverage ignored or underreported some aspects of the situation
> > (the motivation behind the lawsuit, epxloitation of the name confusion on
> > the part of etoy), and reported some conjecture and pure flights of fancy
> > as fact (evil intentions, scheming lawyers).  You have no idea how painful
> > it is to read things like that from a source that you trust and consider
> > part of your community.  I guess I should have known better though:
> > Slashdot is an op/ed site.  If you want the news, you still have to read
> > the New York Times (who had much more accurate coverage of the events).
> >
> > Anyway, I don't claim that eToys was right to take legal action, just that
> > the reports about an evil empire were greatly exaggerated and that eToys
> > is a good place to work, full of good people.  Anyone who doesn't believe
> > me at this point probably never will, so I'm going to stop spamming the
> > list about this subject and go back to spamming about mod_perl.
> >
> > - Perrin
> >

RE: [OT] [JOB] mod_perl and Apache developers wanted

[Paul Singh]

Regardless of what eToys' intentions were, the way I see it, this was a case
in which a billion dollar corporation (well, at least it was back then)
filed suit against a handful of artists who had the etoy.com domain way
before eToys came along.  eToys had no legitimate stake to the domain... and
I don't associate legitimacy with the law... they seldom coincide.  So if
this isn't a case of the bigger guy bullying the little guy, what is it?
Granted, I have a distant association with the eToy crew so my opinions will
be biased... however, even with staying to the facts and ignoring eToys'
motivations, their actions alone reek of unfairness (at best).

Of course, this says little of what type of work environment eToys is and
the people that work there... but it does comment on the corporation and the
people running it.

But as you said, this is definitely off-topic, and I will cease further
comment... take care.

- jps

> -Original Message-
> From: Perrin Harkins [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Friday, June 16, 2000 4:48 PM
> To: Paul Singh
> Cc: ModPerl Mailing List
> Subject: RE: [OT] [JOB] mod_perl and Apache developers wanted
>
>
> On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Paul Singh wrote:
> > While that may be true (as with many publications), I hope you're not
> > denying the facts of this case
>
> The basic facts are correct: eToys received complaints from parents about
> the content their children found on the etoy.com site and, after failing
> to reach an agreement with the site's operators, filed a lawsuit involving
> trademarks which led to etoy being ordered to shut down their site by a
> judge.
>
> Slashdot's coverage ignored or underreported some aspects of the situation
> (the motivation behind the lawsuit, epxloitation of the name confusion on
> the part of etoy), and reported some conjecture and pure flights of fancy
> as fact (evil intentions, scheming lawyers).  You have no idea how painful
> it is to read things like that from a source that you trust and consider
> part of your community.  I guess I should have known better though:
> Slashdot is an op/ed site.  If you want the news, you still have to read
> the New York Times (who had much more accurate coverage of the events).
>
> Anyway, I don't claim that eToys was right to take legal action, just that
> the reports about an evil empire were greatly exaggerated and that eToys
> is a good place to work, full of good people.  Anyone who doesn't believe
> me at this point probably never will, so I'm going to stop spamming the
> list about this subject and go back to spamming about mod_perl.
>
> - Perrin
>

RE: [OT] [JOB] mod_perl and Apache developers wanted

[Perrin Harkins]

On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Paul Singh wrote:
> While that may be true (as with many publications), I hope you're not
> denying the facts of this case

The basic facts are correct: eToys received complaints from parents about
the content their children found on the etoy.com site and, after failing
to reach an agreement with the site's operators, filed a lawsuit involving
trademarks which led to etoy being ordered to shut down their site by a
judge.

Slashdot's coverage ignored or underreported some aspects of the situation
(the motivation behind the lawsuit, epxloitation of the name confusion on
the part of etoy), and reported some conjecture and pure flights of fancy
as fact (evil intentions, scheming lawyers).  You have no idea how painful
it is to read things like that from a source that you trust and consider
part of your community.  I guess I should have known better though:
Slashdot is an op/ed site.  If you want the news, you still have to read
the New York Times (who had much more accurate coverage of the events).

Anyway, I don't claim that eToys was right to take legal action, just that
the reports about an evil empire were greatly exaggerated and that eToys
is a good place to work, full of good people.  Anyone who doesn't believe
me at this point probably never will, so I'm going to stop spamming the
list about this subject and go back to spamming about mod_perl.

- Perrin

Re: [OT] [JOB] mod_perl and Apache developers wanted

[Billy Donahue]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Perrin Harkins wrote:

> That whole thing was resolved quite a while ago, and ended with etoy.com
> getting their domain back and eToys paying their legal fees.  This
> company has nothing against artists and is not an evil faceless
> corporation; just a bunch of people running a big toy store.

Oh gee, I guess eToys.com were the good guys after all!
Come on

- --
"The Funk, the whole Funk, and nothing but the Funk."
Billy Donahue 
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RE: [OT] [JOB] mod_perl and Apache developers wanted

[Paul Singh]

>
> I like Slashdot too, but don't believe everything you read there.  They
> sometimes skew the facts a bit in their eagerness for good stories.
>

While that may be true (as with many publications), I hope you're not
denying the facts of this case... which basically boil down to a corporation
coming in and harassing a bunch of artists who had a more legitimate right
to their domain.  If anything, it seems to me that etoy.com would have a
better case against etoys.com, rather than the other way around.

None the less, this is extremely OT and I apologize...

- jps

Re: [OT] [JOB] mod_perl and Apache developers wanted

[Jeffrey W. Baker]

On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Shane Nay wrote:

> Hehe, I was going to say I thought I saw some etoy.com action in Perrin's
> headers, but looks like he spoke up for himself.  The bottom line is that a lot
> of companies have law departments that Do Bad Things.  You just have to keep
> them in check.  (i.e. Get GPL clauses in your contracts!, it's _IMPORTANT_, I'm
> doing this right now, and will see if it's okay with my lawyer to post the
> wording for anyone to use.)

Besides of course abiding by all your software licenses, I believe
programmers working for Internet companies have another serious duty.  
That is to squarely refuse to assist in the filing of insipid patents.  
You can also have it written into your offer of employment that patent
applications are excluded from your work duties.  By doing so, the
technical people who are behind the inventions can keep the Internet
patent land grab from getting out of control.

IMHO, naturally.  Your philosophical mileage may vary.

Jeffrey Baker

Re: [OT] [JOB] mod_perl and Apache developers wanted

[Shane Nay]

Hehe, I was going to say I thought I saw some etoy.com action in Perrin's
headers, but looks like he spoke up for himself.  The bottom line is that a lot
of companies have law departments that Do Bad Things.  You just have to keep
them in check.  (i.e. Get GPL clauses in your contracts!, it's _IMPORTANT_, I'm
doing this right now, and will see if it's okay with my lawyer to post the
wording for anyone to use.)

 
1 ___
2  
3 ** DREAMWVR.COM - TOTAL INTERNET SERVICES 
4   TOTAL DESIGN - DEVELOPMENT - INTEGRATION - SECURITY - Click Here..
5;
6DREAMWVR.COM - The Console of Many... 90 Topics Covered
7 ;
8 ;
9 ->> LINUX-MANDRAKE Solution Provider and North American Distributor<<-
10 PRODUCT OF THE YEAR!
11 ;
12  "===0 PGP Key Available
13*** "As Unique as the Company You Keep."*
14"If anyone speaks from DREAMWVR.COM its certainly not me:-)"
15

15 lines.  Hmm.., what's the distribution of the mod_perl list?  Probably 1000
or so.  So, 15,000 lines of almost spam.  Please dreamwvr..., keep it down to
a dull roar.  People that include mini commercials like Matt tend to keep it
pretty small and professional, like 4 lines.  15 is too much..., no yelling
either.

Shane.
(Totally offtopic, but I had to say something)

Re: [OT] [JOB] mod_perl and Apache developers wanted

[Perrin Harkins]

"Jeffrey W. Baker" wrote:
> You forgot the part about suing legitimate domain name holders, harrassing
> artists with little or no income, and trying to extend USA jurisdiction to
> the internet.
> 
> While I'm sure the engineering department had no part in such things, I
> believe the readers of this list acare deeply about corporate culture and
> freedom on the Internet.

Well, thank you for at least that last part.  You're right, the
engineering department here (yes, I work at eToys) had nothing to do
with it.  We are nice people doing fun work with mod_perl and other open
source software.

That whole thing was resolved quite a while ago, and ended with etoy.com
getting their domain back and eToys paying their legal fees.  This
company has nothing against artists and is not an evil faceless
corporation; just a bunch of people running a big toy store.

I like Slashdot too, but don't believe everything you read there.  They
sometimes skew the facts a bit in their eagerness for good stories.

- Perrin

Re: [OT] [JOB] mod_perl and Apache developers wanted

[David Emery]

At 21:27 -0600 00.6.15, dreamwvr wrote:
>Hi Jeffery,
>What is this about?
>> You forgot the part about suing legitimate domain name holders, harrassing
>> artists with little or no income, and trying to extend USA jurisdiction to
>> the internet.
>>
>> While I'm sure the engineering department had no part in such things, I
>> believe the readers of this list acare deeply about corporate culture and
> > freedom on the Internet.
>>
>

Here's a link to a one of of the Slashdot articles on the subject

http://slashdot.org/yro/99/12/30/1159249.shtml

The article includes links to related articles from Wired, C-Net, etc. Only 
the Wired links seem to remain live.

More at http://www.toywar.com including a graphical rundown of the whole 
episode.

Dave

Re: [OT] [JOB] mod_perl and Apache developers wanted

[dreamwvr]

Hi Jeffery,
What is this about?
> You forgot the part about suing legitimate domain name holders, harrassing
> artists with little or no income, and trying to extend USA jurisdiction to
> the internet.
> 
> While I'm sure the engineering department had no part in such things, I
> believe the readers of this list acare deeply about corporate culture and
> freedom on the Internet.
> 
> Jeffrey Baker
-- 
Reuters, London, February 29, 1998:
Scientists have announced discovering a meteorite which will strike the
earth in March, 2028.  Millions of UNIX coders expressed relief for being
spared the UNIX epoch "crisis" of 2038. 
___
 
** DREAMWVR.COM - TOTAL INTERNET SERVICES 
  TOTAL DESIGN - DEVELOPMENT - INTEGRATION - SECURITY - Click Here..
   ;
   DREAMWVR.COM - The Console of Many... 90 Topics Covered
;
;
->> LINUX-MANDRAKE Solution Provider and North American Distributor<<-
PRODUCT OF THE YEAR!
;
 "===0 PGP Key Available
*** "As Unique as the Company You Keep."*
"If anyone speaks from DREAMWVR.COM its certainly not me:-)"
  

Re: [OT] [JOB] mod_perl and Apache developers wanted

[Jeffrey W. Baker]

On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Bill Hilf wrote:

> What we're about:
> -
> We are a strictly *nix software development shop and encourage and promote
> the use and publication of Open Source software.  Our Engineering staff
> includes developers who contribute heavily to lists such as this, and have
> numerous contributions throughout the Open Source and web development
> communities.  Our work environment is casual and fun - our focus is on
> building great software, not if you're in the office at 8am.  All the
> other typical tech benefits apply: free sodas, concierge services, home
> high-speed access, etc.  We're located in Santa Monica, Calif., about five
> minutes from the beach.

You forgot the part about suing legitimate domain name holders, harrassing
artists with little or no income, and trying to extend USA jurisdiction to
the internet.

While I'm sure the engineering department had no part in such things, I
believe the readers of this list acare deeply about corporate culture and
freedom on the Internet.

Jeffrey Baker