[ih] Simple question

[Ted Faber]

On Fri, Aug 24, 2001 at 06:05:15PM -0700, Joe Touch wrote:
> Ted Faber wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 21, 2001 at 01:46:51AM +0100, Lloyd Wood wrote:
> > > On Mon, 20 Aug 2001, Ted Faber wrote:
> > > >
> > > > To my (limited) knowledge, this type of document is unique to (or at
> > > > least originated in) the Internet community.  Can anyone confirm, deny
> > > > or add any background?
> > >
> > > usenet posts expire (well, they used to....) Papers referencing usenet
> > > posts by message-id are legion. mostly amongst sociologists discussing
> > > usenet behaviour, but...
> > 
> > Yeah, they expire, but again, one could archive them and cite them,
> > which I assume is what the sociologists do.  I also believe that the
> > expiration data for news was a matter of conserving disk space, not of
> > philospohically enforcing a time limit. 
> 
> Having been involved in this discussion in the past, one significant
> purpose had nothing to do with space. The free exchange of ideas
> sometimes requires that things be said that disappear; bad ideas
> that don't always come back to haunt the author.
> 
> The idea of IDs was to allow that free exchange, without the
> threat of an archival record.

Understood.  Should I assume you just quoted sloppily (you're
following up my first message not my second) or were you joining the
discussion about USENET posts.

> 
> The bad news is that some of the bad ideas later became good 
> ideas which others patented (or are still patenting). An archive
> of IDs would be useful to provide a trail to invalidate such
> patents. 

What legal standing does an ID have in such a case?  (I suspect it's
untested, but I'd be interested to hear otherwise.)



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