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Ditto. Thanks, Tom. I forwarded your mail to the Yale ISP Fellows
mailing list. <br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
-Ramesh<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ramesh Subramanian, Ph.D.
Gabriel Ferrucci Professor of Information Systems
Quinnipiac University
275 Mount Carmel Avenue
Hamden, CT 06518.
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:rameshs@quinnipiac.edu">rameshs@quinnipiac.edu</a>
Web: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1288.xml?Person=23345&type=5">http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1288.xml?Person=23345&type=5</a>
&
Visiting Fellow, Information Society Project
Yale Law School
127 Wall Street
New Haven, CT 06511.
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:ramesh.subramanian@yale.edu">ramesh.subramanian@yale.edu</a>
Web: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.law.yale.edu/intellectuallife/9841.htm">http://www.law.yale.edu/intellectuallife/9841.htm</a></pre>
<br>
On 2/27/2012 7:58 PM, Debbie wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:B58A0B0C-4A2D-486C-9DAB-CBEBAF506D22@mit.edu"
type="cite">Thanks Tom! It's a good piece.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Debbie</div>
<div><br>
<div apple-content-edited="true"> <span
class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate;
color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size:
12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight:
normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal;
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-webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;
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-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width:
0; ">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space;
-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">
<div>Deborah G. Douglas, Ph.D.</div>
<div>Curator of Science and Technology</div>
<div>MIT Museum, N51-209</div>
<div>265 Massachusetts Ave.</div>
<div>Cambridge, MA 02139</div>
<div>tel. 617-253-1766 | fac. 617-253-8994 | <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:ddouglas@mit.edu">ddouglas@mit.edu</a></div>
<div><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://web.mit.edu/museum">http://web.mit.edu/museum</a>
| <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://museum.mit.edu/150">http://museum.mit.edu/150</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
</span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
</div>
<br>
<div>
<div>On Feb 27, 2012, at 4:30 PM, Thomas Haigh wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant:
normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal;
line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto;
text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space:
normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none;
-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width:
0px; font-size: medium; ">
<div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US">
<div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; ">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Hello
everyone,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">I just
posted this to the SIGCIS site. I wasn’t going to
spend any more time on this story, but then when I
read the Post’s Ombudsman’s column over the
weekend I just couldn’t restrain myself.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Tom<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">-------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Over the
weekend the Washington Post delivered its response
to a storm of protest over last week’s story
claiming that the Smithsonian had “honored” V.A.
Shiva Ayyadurai as the “inventor of email.” This
came in the form of the “Reader Meter” column
written by Patrick B. Pexton’ the Post’s
Ombudsman. See<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/omblog/post/reader-meter-who-really-invented-e-mail/2012/02/24/gIQAHZugYR_blog.html"
style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;
">http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/omblog/post/reader-meter-who-really-invented-e-mail/2012/02/24/gIQAHZugYR_blog.html</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN">His
column does offer a general implication that
something about the story would, in an ideal
world, have been done differently. However he does
not concede any specific error, and concludes that
“Kolawole did the due diligence for the story, and
she responded to the readers within a reasonable
time frame. That’s all an editor can do.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN">Pexton
does not choose to defend<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Ayyadurai’s
relatively specific (and easily debunked) claim
that his was the first system to include from, to,
cc, bcc and subject fields.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 6.9pt;
margin-left: 0in; line-height: 17px; font-size:
11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;
background-image: initial; background-attachment:
initial; background-origin: initial;
background-clip: initial; background-color: white;
background-position: initial initial;
background-repeat: initial initial; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Instead,
in the manner of a drowning man clutching as
straws, he falls back on what, to him, appears to
be proof that Ayyadurai must have invented
something important:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 6.9pt;
margin-left: 0.5in; line-height: 17px; font-size:
11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;
background-image: initial; background-attachment:
initial; background-origin: initial;
background-clip: initial; background-color: white;
background-position: initial initial;
background-repeat: initial initial; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "></span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color:
black; " lang="EN">We do know that the guy who
copyrighted the terms “email” and “e-mail” and who
developed and copyrighted some of the computer
code and underpinnings of the modern versions of
e-mail that we all use is an instructor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology named V.A.
Shiva Ayyadurai. And he did some of his e-mail
work when he was 14, 15 and 16 years old, as a New
Jersey high school student.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 6.9pt;
margin-left: 0.5in; line-height: normal; font-size:
11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;
background-image: initial; background-attachment:
initial; background-origin: initial;
background-clip: initial; background-color: white;
background-position: initial initial;
background-repeat: initial initial; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New
Roman', serif; color: black; " lang="EN">The
Smithsonian decided to honor him in February, and
take all of the documentation of his youthful
work….<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN">There
are three important claims in there. All of them
are false.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN">1)<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color:
black; " lang="EN">Ayyadurai “copyrighted the
terms ‘email’ and ‘e-mail’.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color:
black; " lang="EN">2) Ayyadurai created “some of
the computer code and underpinnings of the modern
versions of e-mail that we all use”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color:
black; " lang="EN">3) That Smithsonian decided to
honor him in February.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color:
black; " lang="EN">Let’s take them in that order.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><b><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color:
black; " lang="EN">Has Ayyadurai copyrighted the
terms ‘email’ and ‘e-mail’.</span></b><b><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "
lang="EN"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN">No.
In fact nobody who knew the first thing about
copyright could possibly believe that he did.
Copyright grants exclusive rights over the
reproduction of a creative work to its author for
a fixed period. The author may chose to grant
requests for its reproduction, often in return for
money.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN">So,
if the word “email” was copyrighted then I
wouldn’t be able to reproduce it. Nobody could
write it or say it without getting Ayyadurai’s
permission. Maybe he’d want ten cents every time.
Maybe he’d grant permission only to people who
agreed not to challenge his claims. (There is a
tradition of fair use, but that isn’t usually
taken to allow reproduction of the whole work, so
maybe we could use the letters “e” and “l”). Of
course the only thing you’d achieve by
copyrighting a new word is making sure that it
never caught on.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN">This
is why the law does not allow anyone to copyright
individual words, terms, or even titles. Ever
notice that multiple, unconnected books have the
same title? Perfectly legal.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">What
Ayyadurai has copyright on is the code of a
computer system he submitted to the copyright
office in 1984 and a user manual from 1982. This
would support a claim that he was the author of
this program and its manual. It does absolutely
nothing to support any claim that this was the
first email program.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">The
appropriate form of intellectual property
protection for a word or short phrase would be a
trademark, registered with the USPTO. That would
reflect a judgment that the phrase had not
previously been registered and would provide
exclusive commercial use. Ayyadurai does not have
a trademark on the word email.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color:
black; " lang="EN">The open question is whether<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Ayyadurai
was the first to contract “electronic mail” down
to “e-mail” to name his program rather than just
to “mail” as on most systems. That’s actually an
interesting little footnote-worthy detail that has
been rather obscured by his claims to have
invented email.</span><span style="font-size:
12pt; line-height: 18px; font-family: 'Times New
Roman', serif; color: black; " lang="EN"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><b><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color:
black; " lang="EN">Did Ayyadurai create
“computer code and underpinnings of the modern
versions of e-mail that we all use”<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN">Consider
the evidence presented on one of his many
websites,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.inventorofemail.com/"
style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;
">http://www.inventorofemail.com/</a>. Presented
in loving detail are copyright slips for his user
manual and computer code, an entry for the
Westinghouse Science Talent Search and a program
booklet page suggesting that he was one of many
students that year to receive some kind of
honorable mention. Finally there is a short 1980
inside page story from the West Essex Tribune,
mentioning his “design and implementation of [an]
electronic mail system.” It makes no description
of any particular novel feature of the system, but
does call it sophisticated and useful. Finally,
part of a sentence is devoted to<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Ayyadurai
in a story on incoming students in MIT’s Tech Talk
in 1981.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;
line-height: 18px; font-family: 'Times New Roman',
serif; " lang="EN"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN">This
falls so far short of supporting a claim that his
code “underpins the modern versions of e-mail that
we all use” that it’s hard to know where to start.
Let’s say that there are two main problems.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN">(1)
The underpinnings for modern email had already
been created elsewhere by 1980. It’s not just
APRPANET email, the direct precursor of today’s
Internet based protocols. The concept had been
widely distributed to the public in books like
Toeffler’s The Third Wave (1980) and Hiltz and
Turoff’s Network Nation (1978). Electronic mail
had been the main subject of articles published in
magazines like Business Week since at least 1975.
That was when office automation companies (IBM,
DEC, Xerox, etc) began to promote electronic mail
as a key feature of their current and future
products. Email systems were offered by commercial
timesharing providers, and widely used inside
large technology companies. The Xerox PARC email
system included a recognizably modern GUI client
program. Email was being built into Unix as a
standard feature.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN">(2)
Ayyadurai does not seem to have published any
papers describing his work or distributed its code
to others. There is no obvious direct path from
being one of 12 children in New Jersey to receive
an honorable mention in a science competition that
year to laying the underpinnings for all email
software in use today. There would have to be a
number of steps in between where the ideas in the
system are widely reported and everyone working on
developing email decides to drop what they were
doing previously and copy them. A short profile in
a small local newspaper doesn’t quite do that. So
the onus would really be on him to show exactly
how a system that nobody ever heard of (except
loyal readers of the West Essex Tribute or office
workers at the University of Medicine and
Dentistry of New Jersey) came to lay the
foundation for all subsequent work on email.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><b><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color:
black; " lang="EN">Did the Smithsonian decide to
honor Ayyadurai in February, and take all of the
documentation of his youthful work.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color:
black; " lang="EN">No. It’s clear that the
Smithsonian did accept a box or two of materials
from him for its archive. In as much as it honored
him it was by accepting this donation and not, as
Pexton suggests, through some separate activity.
It did not present an award, host a gala dinner,
or do any of the other things that come to mind
when someone is being honored.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color:
black; " lang="EN">The Smithsonian recently issued
a release clarifying the reasons for the
acquisition.<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://americanhistory.si.edu/news/pressrelease.cfm?key=29&newskey=1465"
style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;
">http://americanhistory.si.edu/news/pressrelease.cfm?key=29&newskey=1465</a>.
This notes<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0.5in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">In
accepting these objects, the museum did not claim
that Ayyadurai was “the inventor of email,” as
some press accounts have alleged.<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><br>
<br>
Exchanging messages through computer systems, what
most people call “email,” predates the work of
Ayyadurai.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;
line-height: 18px; font-family: 'Times New Roman',
serif; color: black; " lang="EN"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color:
black; " lang="EN">The statement basically says
that it is interesting to preserve material about
a small, obscure and unknown email system as a
complement to the big government funded and
commercial efforts we were already aware of. It
also mentions relevance for historians interested
in computer education during the era.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><b><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">An
Aside<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Pexton’s
opening suggests that the truth as inherently
unknowable so that there’s no point actually
trying to find it out, which is funny as it’s
generally humanities scholars who get accused of
postmodern disregard for empirical truth, moral
relativism or nihilism:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 6.9pt;
margin-left: 0.5in; line-height: normal; font-size:
11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;
background-image: initial; background-attachment:
initial; background-origin: initial;
background-clip: initial; background-color: white;
background-position: initial initial;
background-repeat: initial initial; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New
Roman', serif; color: black; " lang="EN">Who
invented e-mail? Crikey, I don’t know. Maybe Al
Gore.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 6.9pt;
margin-left: 0.5in; line-height: normal; font-size:
11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;
background-image: initial; background-attachment:
initial; background-origin: initial;
background-clip: initial; background-color: white;
background-position: initial initial;
background-repeat: initial initial; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New
Roman', serif; color: black; " lang="EN">But to
properly determine who did what in the multi-year,
organic development of electronic messaging would
take a fleet of patent lawyers months and years to
sort out.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN">If
only, one is tempted to speculate, society had
somehow produced a group of people whose work was
to investing months and months, sometimes even
years, sorting through tangled claims and masses
of contradictory sources to produce a coherent and
well supported narratives about the past. We could
call them “historians.” They could write books and
articles, and then people who needed to find out
about the past could read them without needing to
hire patent lawyers.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Seeing
this kind of thing published in the Washington
Post is really shameful. (Gee, I hope nobody
copyrighted that word). Pexton reads more like a
defense lawyer for a journalist than a
representative of the reader. It’s like the
efforts of lobbyists to create spurious
uncertainty over the health risks of tobacco or
existence of climate change.<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN">There
are dozens, maybe hundreds, of people who could
plausibly claim to have achieved some kind of
significant incremental “first” in the development
of email. Untangling that would be a lot of work.
On the other hand there are billions of people who
clearly didn’t invent email. Finding this out
about someone is pretty easy. Unfortunately for
Pexton and the Washington Post, V.A. Shiva
Ayyadurai is one of the billions of people who
didn't invent email. No hedges or qualifiers
needed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18px;
font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " lang="EN"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 0in;
margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-left:
0in; line-height: 17px; font-size: 11pt;
font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><span lang="EN"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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