Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 14:19:39 -0800 From: Rick Moen To: Wayne Earl [...] Subject: Re: djb legal hassle? References: User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i begin Wayne Earl quotation: > I recently referred to your rants page in response to an SVLUG user > question. I noticed that you state that Bernstein was legally threatening > you. Why on $PLANET would he do that? Oh, he felt that the Bugtraq post linked in the first paragraph from the text "attempting to cram as much SMTP mail as possible" is "fraudulent", and as evidence cited the fact that he has a Web page disputing it. (He didn't threaten litigation, and I nowhere so claimed: As mentioned, he said what I wrote was "libel" and "against the law".) Here is almost all of the exchange. I didn't keep a copy of his original query, in which he carped over the wording of the FAQ's prior wording, which was arguably no longer accurate as it spoke of a fault present only in really _old_ copies of qmail. As you'll see, I thanked him, removed the arguably-incorrect text, and replaced it with current text making essentially the same point -- i.e., that DJB's software tends to be perveresely designed so as to "not play well with others" while _strictly_ speaking still complying with (the letter of) the RFCs (for selective values of "RFCs"). I like to make sure that the factual claims in my FAQs cannot be quibbled with, and thus was glad to make that change: Really, DJB's software is so _pervaded_ with examples of that trait that I had no excuse for sloppiness, and so did not mind DJB's prodding on that point. His calling my writings "libel", on the other hand, was way over the line. (Among the many defects of that claim is that I nowhere impugned _him personally_: You cannot libel a piece of software.) Obviously, I cannot know what he was thinking, but can show you what he wrote and let you evaluate that on its merits. From rick Sun Feb 18 16:40:30 2001 Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 16:40:30 -0800 To: djb@cr.yp.to Subject: Correction made (thanks) Dear Prof. Bernstein: Thank you for calling attention to the "simultaneous SMTP connections" claim about qmail at http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/warez.html#djb , which was indeed arguably in error, and has been replaced with a more-accurate example of the point I was driving at. That's what I get for attempting to reproduce casual comments heard in prior years, without proper research and verification. My apologies for any offence my error caused. I have also taken the opportunity of making more precise some wording in the two paragraphs following, that had been bloody-mindedly misparsed and misrepresented by some of your acolytes in the past. The replacement wording should be much more difficult to misconstrue, even willfully. Last, I have fleshed out the bottom of the entry, as I've long intended to do, with specific recommendations of genuinely open-source alternatives to your codebases, for those of us who care about licensing. Soon, I'll probably add some words of appreciation for your truly heroic role in Bernstein v. Dept. of Justice, and for the uniformly high quality of your work: Credit where due. -- Cheers, Before enlightenment, caffeine. Rick Moen After enlightenment, caffeine. rick@linuxmafia.com From djb-dsn-982546648.13458@cr.yp.to Sun Feb 18 17:38:23 2001 Return-path: Envelope-to: rick@linuxmafia.com Delivery-date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 17:38:23 -0800 Received: from muncher.math.uic.edu ([131.193.178.181]) by uncle-enzo.linuxmafia.com with smtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 14UfHS-0001HC-00 for ; Sun, 18 Feb 2001 17:38:23 -0800 Received: (qmail 14747 invoked by uid 1001); 19 Feb 2001 01:37:28 -0000 Date: 19 Feb 2001 01:37:28 -0000 Message-ID: <20010219013728.13458.qmail@cr.yp.to> From: "D. J. Bernstein" To: Rick Moen Cc: djb@cr.yp.to Subject: Re: Correction made (thanks) References: <20010218164030.B1296@linuxmafia.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Status: RO X-Status: A Content-Length: 846 Lines: 17 Now you're claiming that ``earlier versions'' of qmail caused machines to crash: ``Bernstein's software is ... pervaded by a bloody-minded disregard for the rest of the world, e.g., qmail's trait (in earlier versions) of attempting to cram as much SMTP mail as possible down recipient systems' throats, which was notorious for crashing destination mail systems (and thus pioneered the art of mail delivery as a Denial of Service attack).'' Do you have any evidence to back up this claim? Your ``attempting to cram as much SMTP mail as possible'' is now a link to a message by Wietse Venema. That message is fraudulent, as discussed in http://cr.yp.to/qmail/venema.html. Furthermore, I can't see where you got the idea that Venema's message had any relevance to your claim, or the idea that qmail has changed its SMTP delivery strategy. ---Dan From rick@linuxmafia.com Sun Feb 18 21:10:36 2001 Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 21:10:36 -0800 From: Rick Moen To: "D. J. Bernstein" Subject: Re: Correction made (thanks) Reply-To: djb@cr.yp.to Dear Prof. Bernstein: You are perfectly welcome to pursue your jihad against what you regard as "fraudulent claims". Just not in my mailbox. (Please note Reply-To.) The overall purpose of my FAQ page, in case it was not apparent, is to dispose of annoyances that have previously cluttered up my correspondence. Such as you, your rather bizarrely architected software, and your [non-] licensing. Towards that end, it puts in one neat location succinct versions of the answers I previously gave to annoying questions, before I got tired of hearing them and even more tired of answering them. I believe this overall aim is, in fact, stated right up at the top of the page. Now, despite other oddities about you, you at least _are_ a bright boy. So, I figure you can figure out what that portends for the likelihood of my wishing any debate whatsoever with you or yours. -- Cheers, My pid is Inigo Montoya. You kill -9 Rick Moen my parent process. Prepare to vi. rick@linuxmafia.com From djb-dsn-982560111.14825@cr.yp.to Sun Feb 18 21:21:50 2001 Return-path: Envelope-to: rick@linuxmafia.com Delivery-date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 21:21:50 -0800 Received: from muncher.math.uic.edu ([131.193.178.181]) by uncle-enzo.linuxmafia.com with smtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 14Uilg-0005O8-00 for ; Sun, 18 Feb 2001 21:21:49 -0800 Received: (qmail 11719 invoked by uid 1001); 19 Feb 2001 05:21:51 -0000 Date: 19 Feb 2001 05:21:51 -0000 Message-ID: <20010219052151.14825.qmail@cr.yp.to> From: "D. J. Bernstein" To: rick@linuxmafia.com Cc: djb@cr.yp.to Subject: Re: Correction made (thanks) References: <20010218164030.B1296@linuxmafia.com> <20010219013728.13458.qmail@cr .yp.to> <20010218211036.C1296@linuxmafia.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Status: RO X-Status: A Content-Length: 175 Lines: 5 You are publishing false statements on your web page, in reckless disregard of the truth. That's libel. It's against the law. Are you going to continue this behavior? ---Dan From rick@linuxmafia.com Sun Feb 18 22:15:26 2001 Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 22:15:26 -0800 From: Rick Moen To: "D. J. Bernstein" Subject: Re: Correction made (thanks) begin D. J. Bernstein quotation: > ...That's libel.... My personal FAQ entry about your software is neither untrue nor defamatory, and accurately conveys my views on the subject, as designed. However: My agent for service of process is Elster Haile, attorney at law, of Palo Alto, California. You can look up the mailing address for yourself. As perhaps you know, multi-year civil lawsuits are exhausting and very expensive. I prevailed in mine[1], which my family filed against Boeing Corporation (without the EFF to support me), but it took its toll. You may nonetheless feel it necessary to file, over this matter: Let your conscience be your guide. Otherwise, really, you have wasted enough of my time. -- Cheers, Before enlightenment, caffeine. Rick Moen After enlightenment, caffeine. rick@linuxmafia.com [1] RM comments: References here to "me", "I", and "mine" are a bit inexact: The cited lawsuit was filed by my mother and other widows in the wake of the PanAm Flight 799 disaster, for Boeing's negligence that had proximately caused the death of Captain Arthur Moen and others on board the exploding B707. Being 10 years old at the time, I personally was only very nominally a party to that suit.