A Wall Street Journal article today on the SDMI/DCMA lawsuit by Ed Felten, et al, includes this nasty: "The decision to file the lawsuit hasn't been without consequences. Dr. Drew Dean is scheduled to resign from the Xerox research center tomorrow and says, without elaborating, that the resignation is 'related' to the DMCA lawsuit. A Xerox spokesman says that the legal challenge is 'not something the corporation wished to be involved in' but declined to comment further." Drew, like Dan Wallach, was a grad student of Felten's and the Xerox job was his first, I believe. Will Princeton boot Felten, will Rice boot Wallach? Depends on the courage of the trustees to resist their buddies' pressure, as half-dead Xerox could not. All hail the principled scientists, buck up trustees.
It does not surprise me in the least. Xerox is an incredibly political and bizantine company. (When I worked there as a contractor I saw a number of cool projects get pulled apart due to political manuevers and turf battles.) I sometimes wonder how they have lasted this long... On Thu, 14 Jun 2001, John Young wrote:
A Wall Street Journal article today on the SDMI/DCMA lawsuit by Ed Felten, et al, includes this nasty:
"The decision to file the lawsuit hasn't been without consequences. Dr. Drew Dean is scheduled to resign from the Xerox research center tomorrow and says, without elaborating, that the resignation is 'related' to the DMCA lawsuit. A Xerox spokesman says that the legal challenge is 'not something the corporation wished to be involved in' but declined to comment further."
Drew, like Dan Wallach, was a grad student of Felten's and the Xerox job was his first, I believe.
Will Princeton boot Felten, will Rice boot Wallach? Depends on the courage of the trustees to resist their buddies' pressure, as half-dead Xerox could not.
All hail the principled scientists, buck up trustees.
alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys. "All power is derived from the barrel of a gnu." - Mao Tse Stallman
At 03:38 PM 6/14/2001 -0700, Alan Olsen wrote:
It does not surprise me in the least.
Xerox is an incredibly political and bizantine company. (When I worked there as a contractor I saw a number of cool projects get pulled apart due to political manuevers and turf battles.)
I sometimes wonder how they have lasted this long...
They've also spent a lot of money, through PARC and now (along with Microsoft and Adobe, those staunch defenders of freedom) "ContentGuard", on "digital rights management", which is just a nice name for the part of a copy protection system which decides whether or not the user gets to do what they're trying to do. So it's not surprising that it's not a friendly place to work if you're a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking to eviscerate the legal protection that the copy protection industry has gained for their technically infeasible product line. Doesn't he realize that it's very important that nobody criticize the RIAA/MPAA's new clothes? -- Greg Broiles gbroiles@well.com "Organized crime is the price we pay for organization." -- Raymond Chandler
is a legal defense fund in place for felten/dean/wallach? if so, anyone have the contact info for it? phillip
-----Original Message----- From: owner-cypherpunks@Algebra.COM [mailto:owner-cypherpunks@Algebra.COM]On Behalf Of John Young Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2001 8:01 PM To: cypherpunks@lne.com Subject: Xerox Sux
A Wall Street Journal article today on the SDMI/DCMA lawsuit by Ed Felten, et al, includes this nasty:
"The decision to file the lawsuit hasn't been without consequences. Dr. Drew Dean is scheduled to resign from the Xerox research center tomorrow and says, without elaborating, that the resignation is 'related' to the DMCA lawsuit. A Xerox spokesman says that the legal challenge is 'not something the corporation wished to be involved in' but declined to comment further."
Drew, like Dan Wallach, was a grad student of Felten's and the Xerox job was his first, I believe.
Will Princeton boot Felten, will Rice boot Wallach? Depends on the courage of the trustees to resist their buddies' pressure, as half-dead Xerox could not.
All hail the principled scientists, buck up trustees.
Philip Zakas wrote:
is a legal defense fund in place for felten/dean/wallach? if so, anyone have the contact info for it?
EFF is funding the suit and welcomes contributions: www.eff.org Drew Dean should get separate headlines on the Xerox axing. If shit comes down on the other plaintiffs from their piggy institutional employers that should light a fire under Congress. Rice is loaded, not up there with the Princeton and Ivys but sitting on tons of endowment. My alma mater, and it will inherit billions from the Young's dry holes awaiting horizontal exploitation.
participants (4)
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Alan Olsen -
Greg Broiles -
John Young -
Phillip H. Zakas