Alan Jennings has taken offence at my recent posting. He writes in one
posting:
> Thanks, Joe! And who said Americans don`t have a sense of humour!!
> Why not check your facts before shooting your mouth off next time. :-)
>> Alan (obviously the great lying, cheating, stealing Englishman)
> Jennings
and in another:
> Firstly, apologies for this message having been sent at all, but
> in a previous message joe feldenstein from Washington virtually accused
> me of pireating software, and I feel I have to set the record straight.
>> I enclose a list of ftp sites where the program PAUP can be obtained.
> This information is in the public domain,as anyone can e-mail various
> archive-servers around the world and get the same information - exactly
> as I did.
>> So if Joe would like to check this out, maybe he`ll be big enough
> to write an apology to the me via the newsgroup.
>> I won`t hold my breath though.....
This is an apology to three (groups of) people:
(1) To Alan Jennings. My apologies for having called you a thief. I have
looked carefully at my message and can't find the place where I did, but
if anything in it is interpretable that way, I apologize for it. I never
believed that you had done anything improper, simply that you had heard
that a colleague had downloaded PAUP by ftp and needed documentation, that
you were unaware that PAUP is not freely-distributable, and had innocently
posted a request for information. I never meant in my message to say that
you had done anything wrong. I apologize for what I wrote.
(2) To Jennings's colleague who downloaded the software. Alan Jennings has
informed me by e-mail that you did in fact send $50 to David Swofford plus
several follow-up letters, without result. In that case, you are certainly
justified in obtaining PAUP by any means necessary. I apologize for using
the word "prosecute" -- it was meant light-heartedly but these things
don't come across well in e-mail and I should have known that.
(3) To the people maintaining the two ftp sites that have PAUP 2.4 available.
If you have obtained permission from David Swofford to distribute PAUP by ftp,
then I apologize abjectly to you for the statements that you are engaged in
the unauthorized distribution of software. In that case you are engaged in
a real public service and I congratulate you.
If on the other hand, you do not have Swofford's permission to do this,
then may I politely suggest that you obtain it?
For those who missed the messages and want to know what I said I append to
the end of this posting my previous posting.
-----
Joe Felsenstein, Dept. of Genetics, Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
Internet: joe at genetics.washington.edu (IP No. 128.95.12.41)
Bitnet/EARN: felsenst at uwavm
==============================================================================
From: Joe Felsenstein <joe at genetics.washington.edu>
Message-Id: <9205141852.AA17759 at evolution.genetics.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: PAUP by ftp
To: bio-soft at genbank.bio.net
Date: Thu, 14 May 92 11:52:37 PDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL0]
Status: OR
Alan Jennings recently posted a request for documentation for PAUP, and other
places that it could be downloaded by ftp. He said a colleague just
downloaded it from an ftp site in Germany.
PAUP is not freely-distributed. It costs $50 from David Swofford, Illinois
Natural History Survey, Natural Resources Building, 607 East Peabody Drive,
Champaign, Illinois 61820. It is very much worth the money. If Jennings's
colleague will pay the $50 then he may get some documentation, and perhaps
Swofford will be merciful and not prosecute.
That must be a great ftp site: probably has copies of Microsoft Word,
AutoCAD, WordPerfect, Mathematica, etc.
-----
Joe Felsenstein, Dept. of Genetics, Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
Internet: joe at genetics.washington.edu (IP No. 128.95.12.41)
Bitnet/EARN: felsenst at uwavm
