[3836] in Release_7.7_team
Re: Tex IP attribution error on startup page
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Oliver Thomas)
Wed May 7 15:21:43 2003
Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 15:21:41 -0400
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Cc: Oliver Thomas <othomas@mit.edu>, release-team@mit.edu
To: Phillip Long <longpd@mit.edu>
From: Oliver Thomas <othomas@MIT.EDU>
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That's odd. I seem to recall extensive discussion about this back when
I was still a student, which resulted in the Institute declaring that,
for the purposes of IP, Athena was an "insignificant resource", similar
to pencils or legal pads, and merely using Athena or the tools
available on it to produce something did not result in IP ownership by
the Institute. I believe that is the assumption Athena users have
operated under for a long, long time. TeX happens to point this out
explicitly. but this was a general position, if I recall, not tied to
any limitation as to which software on Athena did or did not count. Did
the Libraries have any backup for their position?
Oliver
On Wednesday, May 7, 2003, at 03:03 PM, Phillip Long wrote:
> Hi: The Library has informed me that the start up page for Tex has a
> statement that says that the Intellectual Property ownership of stuff
> written in Tex is owned by the student. They claim that this should
> read that the ownership of things written in Tex belongs to the
> Institute, not the individual.
>
> We've been asked to correct this ownership attribution accordingly.
>
> If you need further clarification of this let me know.
>
> Thanks,
> phil
>
> Phillip D. Long, Ph.D. -- longpd@mit.edu
> Senior Strategist for the Academic Computing Enterprise
> MIT - N42-005 -- voice:617-452-4038
> 77 Massachusetts Avenue (street 211 Mass. Ave.) -- fax: 617-253-8665
> Cambridge, MA 02139
