Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!adiron!richf
From: richf@adiron.UUCP (Rick Fanta)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Rumor problems...
Message-ID: <454@adiron.UUCP>
Date: 23 Aug 90 00:10:26 GMT
References: <1990Aug19.190303.23788@portia.Stanford.EDU> <1990Aug20.153752.21652@midway.uchicago.edu>
Organization: PAR Technology, New Hartford, NY
Lines: 61

scott@sage.uchicago.edu (Scott Deerwester) writes:


>In article <1990Aug19.190303.23788@portia.Stanford.EDU>, declan@portia (Declan McCullagh) writes:
>>In an earlier article, Peter Deutsch (peterd@opus.cs.mcgill.ca) writes...
>> 
>>>I have to defend myself against the claim that I somehow
>>>I _am_ free to pass on rumours, reports etc that are
>>>general knowledge or in the public domain, not originating
>>>from NeXT.
>>
>>I'm curious as to what you would the legal implications of this action
>>would be.  Let's say, for the sake of argument, that NeXT is going to
>>introduce a neon pink 1' diameter sphere with a 25 MHz 68040 later
>>this year.  Let's also say that you know about it.  If a third party
>>developer leaks this information and you read about it on CompuServe,
>>then post it to comp.sys.next, what happens?  Who's responsible?
>>

>I've always assumed that once you've signed a non-disclosure, you give
>up your right to participate in (especially public!) discussions or
>speculation on what the company's going to do NeXT.. er, next.  The
>point is, *you* agree that *you* won't talk about it.  Doesn't matter
>who has found out what; *you* can't join in.  The reason is exactly
>what Declan states; if it's "just a rumor" that you pass on, *after*
>having seen the actual machine, people are likely to conclude that the
>rumor is a lot more than that.

>You note that people from NeXT don't, um.. "speculate" much about what
Boy, did I let loose the floodgates, or what!!!

In addition to the above, Declan (I think) made some great points about lost
revenue for Next.  If you love this company so much Peter, could you please
keep a little quieter?

Consider this.  What if I came out with a "Rick's Next Rumor of the Day" 
daily posting on this group, and covered all the possible new features that 
the new Next might have while insisting they were true.  By your logic, you
could take my resulting lunacy, confirm only the parts that were true, and
hence spill all the beans.  

In all fairness, you may be right that all the stuff you said has already been
disclosed.  I'm not going to debate that with you since my feeble brain is too
busy with other feces to do the necessary research to either refute or confirm
your claim.  It's also possible that Next doesn't mind blabing too much 
because sales have been sluggish and they may be helped by speculation on the
new "make-it or break-it" machine.  I don't know.

If you want to see Next survive (and protect YOUR investment as well) you 
might want to say less next time.

BTW, doesn't even saying that colour will come on a separate board (a rumor I 
have not seen confirmed elsewhere) tell you something about the capabilities 
of a new machine?  Evil people might be able determine capability based on 
board real-estate issues.  Maybe I'm being paranoid, I do after all (currently)
work for a defense contractor (sigh ;-).


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rick Fanta	PAR Technologies 
		New Hartford, New Yawk