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Skriven 2004-11-01 01:24:47 av FidoNews Robot (2:2/2.0)
Ärende: FidoNews 21:44 [02/08]: General Articles
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                        GENERAL ARTICLES
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                 Helmut Hullen and Money
             From: Ward Dossche, 2:292/854

Dear All,

Between late-2000 and mid-2002 the then and now former-sysop Helmut
Hullen waged an international law-suit against me in order to become
re-instated in the Fidonet-nodelist.

On June 14th 2002 the court rejected all of the claims of Helmut
Hullen with the following arguments: <quoted from the ruling>

* Plaintif has not established an error by the defendant nor did he
succeed to demonstrate having suffered any damage;

* Plaintif was not stopped from discussing his perceived situation
with others, hence no error by the defendant was demonstrated in this
field;

* Not-following not yet approved guidelines and internal procedures
[i.e. RegPol24 which was approved only at a later date] by the
defendant is not an error as described by the Civil Law articles
1382-1383.

* The plaintif has not demonstrated in which way he is harmed by the
non-communication of people who do not want to communicate with him;

* Failing to observe the internal rules of the network [i.e. failing
to properly appeal along the *C-chain] and not exhausting the
hierarchical opportunities this offers [prior to addressing a court of
law] voids the possibility of the plaintif to claim his rights were
abused

(square brackets contain clarifications not part of the official
ruling and were added by me for the benefit of the unsuspecting
reader)

As a result Helmut Hullen's technical situation was not changed. He
remains barred from participation in Fidonet.

Some 2-3 months ago Helmut Hullen formally requested to be re-admitted
into Fidonet as a point-operator. A civilised exchange of mails
occured to allow him the courtessy to present his case.

He was informed that through his lawsuit he caused me a cost of 1.403
Euro for my lawyer, this is quite cheap (for our American readers
about $1,700). The full-impact of this expenditure which was caused by
Helmut Hullen's action was softened by an incredible support-campaign
of zone-2 sysops, mainly in region-24, where dozens of people
contributed in solidarity to spread that cost over a large group.

Mr. Hullen was subsequently informed that it is only civilised that he
undo the damage which he caused so I offered him my bankaccount for
refund of these 1.403 Euros.

On October 20th last these 1.403 Euros indeed made it into my
bank-account.

I now intend to refund the kind contributors from 2002 for their
support in the court-proceedings. I understand the following scenarios
are possible:

* The person who donated money has left Fidonet and wants no part of
it;

* The person who donated money has left Fidonet and appreciates a
refund;

* The person who donated money has left Fidonet and cannot be traced;

* The person who donated money still is in Fidonet and wants no
refund;

* The person who donated money still is in Fidonet and appreciates a
refund.

In the coming weeks I will attempt to contact everybody who is on the
list of donors. This list has been made public way back in time so
there's no secrecy about the identities involved. Some people remained
anonymous but perhaps Udo Zaydowicz, who ran the collection-effort and
also left Fidonet in the meantime, can help there.

As a result from this communication-effort refunds might be made,
though from preliminary contacts I learn that people may also consider
funds originating from Helmut Hullen as "blood money" and want no part
of.

Funds which cannot be returned to their original contributor will
henceforth be donated to a worthy humanitarian charity. Non-partisan
as well as non-denominational initiatives like the Red Cross, Docters
Without Borders, Unicef and others come to mind and will be discussed
with the concerned people.

As for Helmut Hullen's status in Fidonet, it remains unchanged. Any
belief or allegation that a person can buy himself or herself with
real money a spot in the nodelist or as a point-operator is hereby
reduced to zero. Any allegation of real-life corruption is ridiculous.

Thank you everybody for your attention.

 \%/@rd Dossche ZC/2


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