[1453] in Humor
HUMOR: Bloodthirsty Locense Agreement
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Wed May 22 16:31:50 1996
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 16:21:31 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
From: Jonathon Weiss <jweiss@MIT.EDU>
From: Jeff Bigler <jcb@cygnus.com>
Date: Wed, 08 May 1996 18:08:19 -0700
>Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 15:51:44 -0700
>From: tolkin@openhorizon.com (Terry Olkin)
>
>----- Begin Included Message -----
>
>The following is an ACTUAL copy of the first two pages inside a manual
>for a product called EASYFLOW.
>
> Bloodthirsty License Agreement
>
>This is where the bloodthirsty license agreement is supposed to go,
>explaining that EasyFlow is a copyrighted package, sternly warning you
>not to pirate copies of it and explaining, in detail, the gory
>consequences if you do.
>
>We know that you are an honest person, and are not going to go around
>pirating copies of EasyFlow; this is just as well with us since we
>worked hard to perfect it and selling copies of it is our only method
>of making anything out of all the hard work. For your convenience
>EasyFlow Is distributed on a non copy-protected diskette and you are
>free to do what you want with it (make backups, move from machine to
>machine, etc.) provided that it is never in use by more than one
>person at a time.
>
>If, on the other hand, you are one of those few people who do go
>around pirating copies of software, you probably aren't going to pay
>much attention to a license agreement, bloodthirsty or not. Just keep
>your doors locked and look out for the HavenTree attack shark.
>
> Honest Disclaimer
>
>We don't claim EasyFlow is good for anything - if you think it is,
>great, but it's up to you to decide. If EasyFlow doesn't work: tough.
>if you lose a million because EasyFlow messes up, It's you that's out
>the million, not us. If you don't like this disclaimer, tough. We
>reserve the right to do the absolute minimum provided by law, up to
>and including nothing.
>
>This is basically the same disclaimer that comes with all software
>package but ours is in plain English and theirs is in legalese.
>
>We didn't really want to include any disclaimer at all, but our
>lawyers insisted. We tried to ignore them but they threatened us with
>the attack shark (see license agreement above) at which point we
>relented.
>
> DON'T LOSE THE MANUAL
>
>That's right; don't lose this manual. Especially don't lose it before
>you have read this page. Why are we telling you this? Isn't it obvious
>that you shouldn't lose the manual?
>
>That's what we thought. Then we started getting all these calls from
>people saying "Hi! I'm Joe Blow and you've never heard of me, but I
>bought a copy of EasyFlow from FlyByNite Software and now I can't find
>the manual... will you send me a new one free?".
>
>At first we were nice guys and went along with this. Then we started
>getting a bit more hard nosed about it; after all it is trivial to
>copy the disk but the manual involves somewhat more work. Now we had
>to agonize over each request and try to distinguish between the
>genuine unfortunate ("the dog chewed it up") and the merely
>unscrupulous looking for free software.
>
>So what does everybody else do? We phoned the local Chevy dealer and
>told them we had misplaced the engine out of our new Camaro; that call
>didn't get us much useful information. Well ... cars aren't software.
>We called Borland and gave them a song and dance about losing our
>Turbo Pascal manual; they said to mail a letter to their "Lost Manual
>Review Committee". Wow! What a good idea. So we immediately rushed
>out and set up our Lost Manual Review Committee. The Committee meets
>once a month. They don't send out many replacement manuals, but they
>seem to do a lot of howling, rolling around on the floor and saying
>things like, "Oh wow - listen to this one".
>
> Don't lose the manual.
>
>Replacement manuals are available without going through the Committee
>for US$147.95 each.
>
>
