Gordon Letwin and IBM's lawyers
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From: jmayn...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Gordon Letwin and IBM's lawyers
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Date: 2 Feb 1993 22:39:35 GMT
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Last October, Gordon Letwin posted an article in which he accused IBM's legal
department of sending Microsoft a letter in which Gordon was accused of
posting untrue and misleading information about OS/2 2.0, in an attempt to get
him either silenced or fired. John Soyring posted a reply in which he
disavowed any knowledge of such a letter. After Gordon replied that he had in
fact received such a letter and that John must have known about it, and
therefore was lying, I posted a message in which I said that Gordon wanted to
make accusations and not be challenged on them. I also offered, if Gordon
wished, to post a message verifying that the original letter did indeed exist,
if Gordon would fax me a copy of it.
After three months of internal wrangling, Gordon faxed me a copy of the
letter. I have been asked not to quote it, and will not; I will, however,
summarize it briefly. It was sent from Thomas L. Cronan, III, to William T.
Pope, Associate General Counsel for Microsoft Corporation, and is dated April
3, 1992. In the letter, Gordon is accused of disseminating untrue or
misleading information about OS/2's authorship and costs, as well as
disclosing technical info in violation of agreements between IBM and
Microsoft. Finally, Gordon is accused of causing damage to OS/2's marketing
and IBM.
In light of this letter, I retract any allegation I have made that Gordon was
attempting to smear IBM without justification in this matter. The letter
exists, and I will attest to having a copy of it. I am posting this message in
the interests of fairness, and because I believe that someone who has been
attacked in this forum should not go defenseless. I am not going to judge the
truth or falsehood of IBM's argument, as I have insufficient information to do
so. I do not know who within IBM instigated the sending of this letter. I
explicitly will not address Gordon's contention that John knew about the
letter and lied about that knowledge; I have no information on the subject,
and cannot and will not form an opinion. Finally, those who have read my
postings to this group will note that I am no friend of Microsoft; while that
attitude has not changed, I believe that IBM's action was less than honorable,
though I can understand any of several reasons why they may have chosen such a
route.
--
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmayn...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu | adequately be explained by stupidity.
"begin 666 foo 266]U(&AA=F4@;F\@;&EF92X* ` end" -- Daniel Drucker
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From: d9mik...@dtek.chalmers.se (Mikael Wahlgren)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Gordon Letwin and IBM's lawyers
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Date: 3 Feb 93 20:51:33 GMT
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jmayn...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>attitude has not changed, I believe that IBM's action was less than honorable,
>though I can understand any of several reasons why they may have chosen such a
>route.
What in this letter wasn't honorable? Most of the things you say was written
in the letter, seems to be quite true. I don't know anything about IBM's
and Microsofts agreements, so if Gordon have revealed anything confidential
is out of my knowledge, but he has certainly done everything he can to put
OS/2 in a bad light.
Mikael Wahlgren
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From: jmayn...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Gordon Letwin and IBM's lawyers
Message-ID: <8660@lib.tmc.edu>
Date: 3 Feb 1993 22:55:11 GMT
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In article <d9mikael.728772...@dtek.chalmers.se> d9mik...@dtek.chalmers.se
(Mikael Wahlgren) writes:
>jmayn...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>>attitude has not changed, I believe that IBM's action was less than honorable,
>>though I can understand any of several reasons why they may have chosen such a
>>route.
>What in this letter wasn't honorable? Most of the things you say was written
>in the letter, seems to be quite true. I don't know anything about IBM's
>and Microsofts agreements, so if Gordon have revealed anything confidential
>is out of my knowledge, but he has certainly done everything he can to put
>OS/2 in a bad light.
You are certainly correct, and putting OS/2 in a bad light is longstanding
tradition for MS employees and sycophants in this group. Where I have a
problem is that someone in IBM (not necessarily someone within the part of the
company that does OS/2) chose to attempt legal intimidation in order to
silence a critic; that's a tactic worthy of Microsoft. IMHO (and remembering
that I'm not privy to the agreements involved), IBM should have simply given
Gordon the silent treatment, letting OS/2 itself answer his criticisms; it is
more than capable of doing so.
--
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmayn...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu | adequately be explained by stupidity.
"begin 666 foo B22!C86XG="!B96QI979E('EO=2!D96-O9&5D('1H:7,A"@ ` end"
-- David Charlap
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From: s...@ellis.uchicago.edu (Timothy F. Sipples)
Subject: Re: Gordon Letwin and IBM's lawyers
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In article <8...@lib.tmc.edu> jmayn...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>You are certainly correct, and putting OS/2 in a bad light is longstanding
>tradition for MS employees and sycophants in this group. Where I have a
>problem is that someone in IBM (not necessarily someone within the part of the
>company that does OS/2) chose to attempt legal intimidation in order to
>silence a critic; that's a tactic worthy of Microsoft. IMHO (and remembering
>that I'm not privy to the agreements involved), IBM should have simply given
>Gordon the silent treatment, letting OS/2 itself answer his criticisms; it is
>more than capable of doing so.
Unless, Jay, there were contractual obligations on the part of
Microsoft not to speak "ill" of IBM or OS/2. (I don't know whether
there were or not. However, if there were, paper -- even from lawyers
-- is cheap.)
--
Timothy F. Sipples | READ the OS/2 FAQ List 2.0i, available from
s...@ellis.uchicago.edu | 128.123.35.151, anonymous ftp, in /pub/os2/all/info
Dept. of Econ., Univ. | /faq, or from LISTS...@BLEKUL11.BITNET (send "HELP")
of Chicago, 60637 | [Post to ONE newsgroup only AFTER reading the List.]
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Date: Thu, 4 Feb 93 08:09:37 MST
From: ear...@newt.ee.byu.edu (David Early)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
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Subject: Re: Gordon Letwin and IBM's lawyers
In article <d9mikael.728772...@dtek.chalmers.se>, d9mik...@dtek.chalmers.se
(Mikael Wahlgren) writes:
>jmayn...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>
>>attitude has not changed, I believe that IBM's action was less than honorable,
>>though I can understand any of several reasons why they may have chosen such a
>>route.
>
>What in this letter wasn't honorable? Most of the things you say was written
>in the letter, seems to be quite true. I don't know anything about IBM's
>and Microsofts agreements, so if Gordon have revealed anything confidential
>is out of my knowledge,... >>SNIP<<
Since the original poster has the letter, I have to ask if the letter
asks anything to be done about the situation. Gordon seemed to intimate
that IBM wanted him out, or had some malicious thoughts, but you didn't
mention this in your first post. If these lawyers were just saying 'Hey,
you are treading on legal ground here.', then I think that this is fine.
No lawsuits were threatened, etc.
Please fill us in if you can.
Dave Early
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From: jmayn...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Gordon Letwin and IBM's lawyers
Message-ID: <8668@lib.tmc.edu>
Date: 4 Feb 93 19:31:23 GMT
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In article <2...@byu.edu> ear...@newt.ee.byu.edu (David Early) writes:
>Since the original poster has the letter, I have to ask if the letter
>asks anything to be done about the situation. Gordon seemed to intimate
>that IBM wanted him out, or had some malicious thoughts, but you didn't
>mention this in your first post. If these lawyers were just saying 'Hey,
>you are treading on legal ground here.', then I think that this is fine.
>No lawsuits were threatened, etc.
The letter makes no direct requests of Microsoft, in the sense of "Please do
X". However, why bother having someone send such a letter if the object is not
intimidation? I cannot speak to how a lawyer would interpret the letter; it is
possible that the comments made constitute lawyerese for "Please shut Gordon
up", but in the absence of comment from the original author, I have no way of
knowing.
--
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmayn...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu | adequately be explained by stupidity.
"begin 666 foo B22!C86XG="!B96QI979E('EO=2!D96-O9&5D('1H:7,A"@ ` end"
-- David Charlap
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
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From: os2...@panix.com (Larry Salomon Jr.)
Subject: Re: Gordon Letwin and IBM's lawyers
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In <2...@byu.edu> ear...@newt.ee.byu.edu (David Early) writes:
>Since the original poster has the letter, I have to ask if the letter
>asks anything to be done about the situation. Gordon seemed to intimate
>that IBM wanted him out, or had some malicious thoughts, but you didn't
>mention this in your first post. If these lawyers were just saying 'Hey,
>you are treading on legal ground here.', then I think that this is fine.
>No lawsuits were threatened, etc.
>Please fill us in if you can.
I'm pretty sure that the letter threatened legal action if Gordon didn't
desist in his postings. Basically, as I've said before in posts on this
subject, the IBM lawyers claimed that he was violating the "Joint
Development Agreement" (JDA) which contains a clause that states neither
company can "disparage" the other's product (meaning Windows or OS/2).
Cheers,
Q
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