Re: Flavors, Symbolics, and MIT

[Mike Caplinger <mike@rice>]

If MIT decides to sell Macsyma to Symbolics (which they seem to have),
then MIT can do so.  When we got a notice from MIT telling us to
destroy our Macsyma distribution, that notice WAS from MIT, not
Symbolics.  Presumably this means that MIT does not choose "to
distribute it as public domain (more-or-less) software cheaply to all
askers."

I have heard a lot of flaming from former MIT people who seem not to
believe in the legal and economic realities of software development.  I
wish I did not have to believe in those realities either.  But the fact
remains; somebody at MIT is making money selling MIT software to
Symbolics and LMI and everyone else who will buy it.  If those people
don't own the software, then something illegal is happening, and I
think everyone would like to know about it.