Piss Off, PetroSoft
To satiate my copyright ranting until I finally finish what is turning out to be a rather long essay, let's look at my own fun experience with frivolous trademark/copyright bullshit.
The story begins all the way back in 1998, when I was forced to take the worst Computer Science course ever, ``Software Engineering'' where the ``real world'' is apparently simulated by having 12 third year computer science students make random annoying comments to each other all year, and then anoint two lucky people to write the software in the last two weeks.
Oh wait; that is a reasonable simulation of an office.
In any case, group projects (especially with 12 people) have no place in a computer science curriculum, nor does this ridiculous course. This is rather beside the point, though, What our group produced (I recently learned) is archived at:
http://sern.ucalgary.ca/courses/cpsc/451/W98/assignments/S11
How did I recently learn this fascinating tidbit? Well, it turns out diligent employee Jason Tinder at Rock Solid Images in Texas was doing his corporate duty and sending stupid emails to people who used the word ``PetroSoft'' on their Web site. Of course, I have little patience for such lunacy:
From: Mike Warren <mike [at] mike-warren.com> Subject: Re: group 11 software references To: <j.tinder [at] rocksolidimages.com> Date: 01 Dec 2000 08:23:51 -0700 On Fri, 1 Dec 2000, j.tinder [at] rocksolidimages.com wrote: > Rock Solid Images holds PetroSoft as a registered trademark and I > recently noticed thatit appears as if you usedPetroSoft as a > termin a class project at the University of Calgary in 1998 - > [[http://sern.ucalgary.ca/courses/cpsc/451/W98/assignments/S11/]]- > we would appreciate it if you would remove all references to > PetroSoft in the site or archive this project. No. -- mike [at] mike-warren.com <URL:http://www.mike-warren.com> GPG: 0x579911BD
Now, the referenced-site is no longer even under my control, nor could it ever have been considered ``mine'' owing to the piddling amount of actual content I contributed. Of course, Jason didn't bother to learn this, or to note that the site he references is already an archived version. (You can get another downloadable version from my cpsc site if you want). Jason needed more convincing:
From: Mike Warren <mike [at] mike-warren.com> Subject: Re: group 11 software references To: <j.tinder [at] rocksolidimages.com> Date: 01 Dec 2000 08:43:28 -0700 On Fri, 1 Dec 2000, j.tinder [at] rocksolidimages.com wrote: > thanks for the terse and speedy reply, but may I ask why? It's two years old, has no bearing on your business and is not worth my time. Further, I have little patience for frivolous and misguided attacks enforcing stupid intellectual ``property'' claims. If it's really that big a deal, please bother somebody else about it. -- mike [at] mike-warren.com <URL:http://www.mike-warren.com> GPG: 0x579911BD
Thanks, Jason, for not leaving me out of stupid corporate interference with individual Web site owners, like this one or this one, although I'm quite pleased this is the extent of the ``interference'' thus far.