Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!wuarchive!texbell!texsun!newstop!sun!imagen!daemon
From: ib@apolling (Ivan N. Bach)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: UltraScript PC with 640K
Message-ID: <9477@imagen.UUCP>
Date: 4 Mar 90 18:33:10 GMT
Sender: daemon@imagen.UUCP
Lines: 94

I would love to answer your questions about USPC.  If we lived in a free
society, I would no doubt be able to do that.  You seem to have the illusion 
that this is a free-access network.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

This network is being administered by at least five self-appointed Ministers.
Their names are:

    dyer@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM (Steve Dyer)
    don@cs.UMD.EDU (Don Hopkins)
    adobe.reply3:From: munck@chance.uucp (Robert Munck)
    rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
    keithe@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) 

You have already broken several of their rules by posting your questions 
directly to this newsgroup.  The proper procedure is to prepare a draft for 
your posting in five copies, and send it for approval to the Ministry of the 
USENET Network in Beaverton, Oregon.  They will decide whether your posting 
is "crap."  This is the term the Honorable Don Hopkins used when he referred 
to one of my recent postings.

If you change your posting to their liking, and they approve its distribution, 
you will be able to post it to this newsgroup.  These Ministers, who also act as 
judges, have imposed a gag order on my postings, and they have put my e-mail
address into their "kill" files, so that all my future postings will be auto-
matically eliminated.  If you would like me to answer your questions, you will 
have to prepare an application for the lifting of my gag order in five copies, 
and send it to the Ministry.
 
If my gag order is lifted, I will then have to submit a proposal for my answers 
to the Ministry.  Ministers will review my answers, and if they pass their 
review, they will give me the permission to post them.

If I were you, I would think three times before posting any articles to this
newsgroup.  The last time I asked perfectly reasonable questions, such as:

    1. Why are Adobe and SUN using a compact, binary format in Display Post-
       Script, but only a readable format in Printer PostScript?

    2. Why cannot Adobe propose a standard binary format for Printer Post-
       Script that could be implemented in all PostScript interpreters, so 
       that our printer drivers can produce PostScript programs that would 
       be up to 10 times shorter than the programs written in readable format?

    3. Why don't we improve the user interface programs which allow you to use
       PostScript interpreters in interactive or executive mode, so that they
       are at least as good as the programs which allow you to use a BASIC
       interpreter interactively?

    4. Why don't we improve our application programs in such a way that they
       give us full access to the power of PostScript, so that we do not have
       to program in PostScript directly?

not only did I not get an answer from, for example, Glenn Reid, the person who
managed to write a whole book on how to make PostScript printer drivers more
efficient without ever mentioning the compact, binary format used in other
languages, such as Interpress or DDL, but:

    1. I was threatened by a libel suit.

    2. I was publicly called all kinds of names (a "wannabe," an "embarrassment
       to my employer," "Anti-Adobe," etc.), and then one of the Ministers
       told me that I could respond to these offensive postings only by private 
       e-mail that nobody else would ever see.

    3. My technical comments were called "bashing and haranguing."  I was told 
       that my postings "belittled myself and demeaned the company for which
       I work."  

    4. I was told that my postings were "innuendos unsupported by facts," and 
       then I was told to shut up.  How do you like that parlimentary 
       procedure?  I was also told that I "obviously had an ax to grind."

    5. Several attempts were made to misinterpret my personal comments as the
       comments of my employer.

    6. I was told that the products from my company will not be purchased 
       because of my postings. 

    7. Minister Don Hopkins threatened to notify the PostMaster in my area
       if I post any more "crap." 

    8. One of the Ministers posted instructions on how to put my e-mail address
       into a kill file.

At the same time, the five Ministers enjoy the priviledge of posting any "crap"
they want.  They can call anybody else anything they want, and they can make any
claims they want.  Any attempts on my part to point out that they are the ones
who started this flame war have been met with scorn and more abuse.

When you post something to this group, never include your business address, 
because you will expose yourself and your employer to all kinds of abuse.

I don't know about you, but from now on I will post my articles only to the
newsgroup comp.newprod.  Even that may not be safe.