Re: e$: Skins vs. Shirts

[Tom Weinstein <tomw@netscape.com>]

Tim May wrote:
> 
> At 1:26 AM -0700 6/15/97, Tom Weinstein wrote:
> 
>> Just to be clear, we didn't give the blackmailer any money.  As Mike
>> Homer put it: "We don't bargain with terrorists."
> 
> Netscape wants money for one of their products. I won't give them
> money. "I don't bargain with terrorists."
> 
> (What the Danes offered was a straight buiness deal, albeit made
> weirder and more frantic by the constraints of time, publicity, and
> worldwide attention. Still a business deal, though. When Collabra
> wanted X dollars to be acquired by Netscape, was this also
> "terrorism"? The term "terrorist" hardly applies in business deals.)

If it was just a business deal, that would be okay.  We would have a
right to not pay him.  It becomes blackmail when he says "If you don't
pay me, I will try to damage you."  That's what he did.  He said that
if we didn't pay him, he'd time his press announcement to coincide with
DevCon in order to cause us the maximum damage, which he did.

-- 
What is appropriate for the master is not appropriate| Tom Weinstein
for the novice.  You must understand Tao before      | tomw@netscape.com
transcending structure.  -- The Tao of Programming   |