NYT on the Theft of Altair BASIC

From: John Foust <jfoust_at_threedee.com>
Date: Wed Sep 20 12:52:40 2000

At 08:55 AM 9/20/00 -0700, Eric J. Korpela wrote:
>It's more the point is that Gates and Co. used U.S. government and Harvard
>University computers to develop their BASIC. If Harvard had done what it
>was well within its rights to do and claimed ownership of the code or placed
>it in the public domain, rather than just giving Gates the boot, the computing
>world might be a somewhat different place.

Yes, but universities are also well-known for letting researchers
and even students use their computers for whatever purpose they
like, without regard for the intellectual property rights...
as opposed to the average corporation today, which will claim
to own everything you do on their equipment and even outside
the office, or in the case of one employee agreement a top-5
company once tried to get me to sign, everything you did in
the 18 months *after* you'd left their employment, as well.

- John
Received on Wed Sep 20 2000 - 12:52:40 BST