[OT] Re: IBM T30 and thermal problems

[M. Warner Losh]

[[ sorry for the long turn around, but the labor day weekend kept me busy ]]

In message: <20040904211120.35F9CA59 at CRWdog.demon.co.uk>
            Andy Sparrow <spadger at best.com> writes:
: The mailing list archive on FreeBSD.org now has XXXX's of the quote 
: contained in the original post, (although Google still has the original 
: cached for the time being), not to mention the many 1000's of copies 
: probably still on individual hard drives belonging to people subscribed 
: to the list at the time.

IBM appears to have a valid copyright on the memo contained in the
original post.  While we have no control over all the other copies out
there, we do have control over this copy.  Since the FreeBSD project
respects the intellectual property of others, we decided to remove the
memo as a courtesy to IBM.  We did this for two reasons.  (1) because
IBM appeared to have the legal ownership of the memo and (2) the
original poster of the memo asked us to remove it.

: If it was IBM confidential, then it shouldn't have been sent outside IBM 
: at all in the first place. Whilst netiquette says you don't re-post 
: private email to a list/group, this is always a danger with people you 
: don't know/who don't know netiquette/ignore netiquette.

The information in the post is no longer confidential.  However, the
exact embodiment of the information is none the less copyrighted by
IBM.  IBM has the right to determine how that work is copied.  That's
how the copyright laws of the US works.  In fact, summaries of the
memo do exist in the archives, and those weren't removed since they
are not covered by copyright.

: IANAL, but surely, once it was disclosed outside IBM then, if not 
: covered by any NDA or prior legal agreement, then it's been disclosed by 
: IBM - albeit inadvertantly or carelessly? Isn't this the same scenario 
: as making ill-advised statements in public and you're then stuck with 
: the consequences?

Actually, that's not how Copyright law works.  The memo in the post
appeared to be Copyright by IBM (complete with copyright notice).
Assuming that they appeared to have a valid copyright, they would have
the right to control how that work is copied.

: Whilst I think I appreciate why the archive folks complied with the 
: request (FreeBSD != EFF), it's the re-writing/censorship of history that 
: bothers me.

The memo was redacted with XXX because we didn't want to change the
offsets encoded by various archiving software.  While it does also
bother us, we felt like we had no choice given how the US legal system
works.

Warner Losh
FreeBSD Core