From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Mon Apr 05 2004 - 18:08:35 EDT
On 05/04/2004 13:47, Michael Everson wrote:
> At 13:35 -0700 2004-04-05, Peter Kirk wrote:
>
>>> The implication here is that plain text Unicode would be
>>> used for legal documents. Given that my lawyer would send me emails
>>> in highly marked up format, I find this very difficult to grasp. Is
>>> there any evidence that plain text is even being considered for use
>>> in legal documents?
>>
>>
>> Evidence attached - one of many such legal texts on my computer,
>> nearly all plain text only.
>
>
> You are chasing a chimera, Peter.
Yes, in the dictionary sense "A fanciful mental illusion or
fabrication." That is a very good description of Mike's nonsencical
statements that all legal texts are necessarily highly marked up. For
once I can endorse Philippe's clear explanation of the situation.
Now I agree that modern lawyers are likely to send out nicely formatted
e-mails. At least they need to seem to justify their exorbitant fees by
flashy presentation. But the formatting is just formatting and has
absolutely no legal significance.
By the way, I am not trying to make any argument here about fixed width
spaces, just trying to correct a factual error in Mike's posting.
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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