Re: EMC - a practical implementation?

[Jon Elson <jmelson-at-artsci.wustl.edu>]

james owens wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I have got to add my tuppence worth. Don't get carried away with
> indignity that someone who is looking to hi-jack the whole project for
> commercial gain. These people wish to put it in a pretty package on
> one CD where the end user inserts and presses go. They are not in the
> business of doing the hard work by writing the software then proving
> it, they are marketing salesmen and as such when and if the software
> gets to the stage of insert and go the likes of you and me will be cut
> out by copy-write law suits as they claim it all as their own idea.
> EMC will no longer be FREE.

This cannot happen.  The software may NOT be copyrighted by
a 3rd party, and anyone attempting to do so may become a violator
of federal law.  The can sell it as part of a package.  But, they
probably can't sell it (the software) standalone for more than a
reasonable cost of media and production.  And, they absolutely,
certainly cannot prevent anyone else from using it, distributing
it or selling it.  This would be almost like somebody coming
in the night, stealing your car and then leasing it back to you.
Property they CLEARLY DO NOT OWN cannot become theirs,
just because they say so.  I'm sure NIST knows how to deal with
this sort of thing, it must have come up before.

Jon