4 ms·

But why a poem and why THIS poem?

• riobard 6y ago
  That's the other (and arguably more interesting) part of the puzzle! :)
• LinuxBender 6y ago
  Could it be for trademark / copyright protection? There was an anti-spam mechanism in the past that worked this way. If you abused the system, they could sue you for millions. No idea if that is still around.
  • Anarch157a 6y ago
    > Could it be for trademark / copyright protection? Oracle uses this to connect SQL*Plus client to the database. This way, if you make a client without signing one their draconian contracts, they can sue you for infringing the copyrights on the poem.
    • wbl 6y ago
      Nintendo tried that and got slapped down hard.
      • bitwize 6y ago
        Sega tried that with trademark law and they got slapped down hard.
• toast0 6y ago
  A shortish poem like this seems like a nice match. Ethernet has a minimum packet size, which is around the length of a line. The whole poem is short enough that you can remember it, but long enough that seeing a duplicate line would give you a good idea of having a network loop (possibly with delay) or having a second sender that started at an offset (although, maybe there's some ID information in the packet before the text begins). This poem seems cute and memorable, and unlikely to offend any censors, and may have been available under a permissive license?