English Police Officers (was Re: Interview in Byte with Chris Sontag/SCO and FUD relating toBSDsettlement agreement)

[Terry Lambert]

Kris Kennaway wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 20, 2003 at 11:12:00AM +0100, Paul Robinson wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 19, 2003 at 09:50:14PM -0700, Terry Lambert wrote:
> >
> > > Like the English policeman, they were alarmed
> > > when they thought about it, but about all they could contractually
> > > do was say "Stop!  Or we'll ask you to 'Stop!' again!".
> >
> > Sorry to go off on a tangent (follow-up set to -chat), but as somebody known
> > to be English, I have to defend (if that's the right word) the nastiness of
> > my local law enfocement officers.
> 
> I wouldn't worry too much about it, the above is just one of Terry's
> catchphrases.

"Stop, or I shall yell stop! again"

Is actually a "cachphrase" of mine.  I attribute it to Bruce Miller,
and am willing to accept corrections.

In reference to the Lions-UNSW/Western Electric situation, it
refers to someone impotent to stop some action demanding that
it be stopped.  That they are impotent to enforce this request
is evidenced by their only recourse being to ask the same thing
again, while expecting different results.

A scientific perspective would be that you get the results of
an experiment, and, because you ask them politely, the laws of
God and the universe bend to your will, merely because you are
polite about asking them.

Western Electric asked Lions to stop distributing, through the
college bookstore, his commentary on the UNIX source code,
despite the fact that the license that UNSW was granted permitted
him such ditribution.

The important point here is that the UNSW did not require students
to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and therefore any trade secrets,
if they existed, were disclosed in the process of publication.  This
is true because keeping a trade secret requires that disclosure be
only to a "select group".  The term "select group" has a specific
legal meaning, and the failure of W.E. to require this in their
license, floowed by the subsequent disclosure, means that any trade
secrets were in fact lost: it doesn't matter how a trade secret
escapes custody, the mere fact that it has done so renders it no
longer a trade secret.

-- Terry