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From: dca@toylnd.UUCP (David C. Albrecht)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: caveat emptor
Message-ID: <158@toylnd.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 14-Aug-87 11:36:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: toylnd.158
Posted: Fri Aug 14 11:36:32 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 22-Aug-87 11:01:16 EDT
References: <2093@xanth.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Dave & Anne in Charlottesville, VA
Lines: 58
Summary: Oh COME ON!

In article <2093@xanth.UUCP>, kent@xanth.UUCP (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
> We won't mention any names here, so as not to violate a repeated
> request from the victim for not flaming the villains in the piece, but
> I request all of you who are in a position to make buy/don't buy
> decisions on graphics hardware software systems to keep right at the
> forefront of your mind the recent example of bullying the little guy
> into submission we have seen here, and do your very best not to deal
> with, or let your companies get sucked into dealing with, the bad guys
> in this disagreement.  You know their behavior here is completely
> representative of their corporate mindset, and that entering any
> business agreement with them will eventually be an unpleasant
> experience, right?
> 
> Losing business is one (painful, but just) way of learning how to
> behave in polite society.

Oh give me a break.  I sat through all these ridiculous flames against
Pixar but I finally got my fill.  Imagine that we have a role reversal
here.  Imagine that Leo's bread and butter is some sort of video
production.  Imagine that Leo gives a pre-release demo to a bunch of
people.  Imagine that one of those people from some faceless corporation
sees some ideas he likes in the demo and copys some of the key concepts.
Imagine that the corporation has access to faster and wider distribution
channels and issues the knock-off before Leo gets to distribute his.
Imagine that the corporation though their effort is not anywhere the
same quality as Leo's still manages to fairly effectively steal Leo's
thunder.  I ask you, if you were the victim in this imaginary exercise
how would YOU feel.  I for one would be royally pissed off.  Certainly,
that would be the last time that person sat in on one of my pre-release
screenings.

Just because on person in this scenario is a 'faceless' corporation 
while the other is a frequent contributor to this group and he also
happened to use a machine that we all know and love is still no
excuse for his actions.  Never mind copyright (I don't think Pixar
has a leg to stand on either) just put yourself in the place of the
hard working people who produced this demo.  Mind you, I have nothing
against Leo, he seems like a real nice guy.  But, I think his actions in
this case were thoughtless.  I think he let his creative energies
run away with his reason.  The timing was all important here.
If he had imitated the Luxo lamp demo which has long been distributed
and milked for all it was worth I think that we wouldn't have heard
a peep from Pixar, then it really would have been more flattering than
annoying.  It was using a demo that hadn't even been released yet
that was really irritating.

Pixar isn't a monolithic AI project, there are people within Pixar
give them a little credit for possessing the same kind of emotions that
Leo would feel in the same situation.  Given the environment of this
group it is easy to paint Pixar black and Leo white, it takes a little
more maturity to realize that Pixar might have some reason to be
a little upset.  Hopefully, this whole thing will blow over with no
one particularly damaged by the whole affair.  I do hope, however, Leo
may have gained a little wisdom which he seemed to be lacking heretofor.

David Albrecht  I have absolutely no association with Pixar.
                and yes I have my asbestos suit on and mailbox
                ready.