Re: LYNX-DEV user agent?

[Philip Webb]

i looked up Fote's message 9707xx, which was a reply to Laura Eaves,
who couldn't understand why -- if it's ok to change the user agent --
it's not also ok to save the change in  .lynxrc ; Fote said:

        This is an issue like SSL support.  Whatever you one may personally
think about the merits of the laws and likelihood that test cases would
hold up in court, what's being done now is as far as is reasonable for
the developers to go without risking becoming a test case, with associated
legal costs no matter what the court ultimately decided.

        Lynx is available with sources (expect for one rogue OS/2 port)
and anyone can change the code, together with accepting legal culpability
for the change.

[PW again] ie it appears to be no more than a personal judgement by Fote
that to allow the change wouldn't provoke legal retaliation by Netscape,
whereas to allow the change to be saved might provoke such retaliation,
Fote being frightened he would have to pay big legal bills as a result.

i can see no reason why the current Lynx community should be influenced
by Fote's obviously personal view of the matter, except to pay attention
to the question whether Netscape might try suing us: does anyone believe
that Netscape is any more likely to sue Lynx developers over this
if the ability to save a changed user agent is added to 2-8-1 ?
does anyone (apart from Fote) believe Netscape would bother
to sue Lynx developers about anything ever?

-- 
========================,,============================================
SUPPORT     ___________//___,  Philip Webb : address@hidden
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|  Centre for Urban & Community Studies
TRANSIT    `-O----------O---'  University of Toronto