Re: Official Apple II documentation?

[drkenb <kbuchholz1107@hotmail.com>]

I typically don't participate in these online circle jerks, but I do
need to clarify a few things and to correct some outright lies posted
here.

When I put http://www.Apple2Online.com up 3 months ago, I did so with
the intention of providing a free, public-access library of all things
Apple II.  The fact that the site received over 7500 hits the first
three months, plus all of the positive comments I've received from the
users leads me to believe that the library is filling a previously
unmet need.  ALL of the feedback I have received to date, with the
exception of one individual (can you guess who?), has been positive.
All of the content owners I've contacted about having their content on
the site have been pleased to be included.

The greatest majority of the content was gleaned from numerous ftp and
web sites.  From Day 1 the A2OL home page has stated that if there is
any content that the legal content owner wishes to have removed, to
let me know & I am only glad to comply with those wishes. As Eric
Sheppard stated, when A2OL first went up, there were several items for
which his company has the exclusive rights to sell. What Eric didn't
say here is that when he contacted me to inform me that several of the
offerings on A2OL were items that his company owns the legal rights to
and continues to sell, I IMMEDIATELY removed each and every one of
them and then followed up with an email to him confirming that those
items were removed and offered my sincere apologies.  Similarly, when
Bill Martens informed me of several items that are the property of
Call Apple, those were removed IMMEDIATELY and he was informed of
such. The object of A2OL is to serve as a free public-access library,
not to offer content that is not in the public domain.

This idea that I took other folks content and plastered my name all
over it is simply untrue.  I have never removed someone else's name
from a software title, manual, etc., and put DRKENB on it as claimed
in this thread.  What I did do was to put the "www.Apple2Online.com"
identifier as an indication that the photo was currently being
downloaded from A2OL, but the moment Bill Martens indicated to me that
he thought I was claiming these photos as my own, even though that was
NOT my intent, I realized how it might appear so I removed EVERY photo
from the site, implemented a policy by where ONLY original content
photos contributed by the content owner are accepted on the site and
commenced with a new photo library.  Each photo is tagged with a
"Photo courtesy of {contributor}" and the "www.Apple2Online.com" tag
to indicate from where it is downloaded.  [As an aside to those who
are posting photos on the net: if you do not include some identifier
on your photo, how is someone to contact you to get your permission to
reproduce/redistribute?  Just some food-for-thought...]

A2OL is paid for entirely out of my own pocket.  Unlike all of the
other sites mentioned in this thread, A2OL does NOT generate any
revenue from advertisements, nor does it have any other revenue
streams.  If my little website is causing someone to loose a few
pennies a month in advertising revenue, so be it.

I invite each and every one of you to visit http://www.Apple2Online.com
to see for yourself what the site is about before you make up your
mind as to what I am doing and not doing and what the site contains
and does not contain.  And again I will reiterate, if you are the
legal content owner and wish to have your content removed, please
contact me immediately so that I can comply with your wishes.