Manuals :Surplus Re: UK - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

26 May 2001

At 06:54 PM 5/25/01 -0400, joe wrote:
...
     Shoot! Usually they just pull and trash the hard
drive :-(     I don't know what happens to the books but it's rare to get manuals
with ANYTHING that gets surplused.  I've heard rumors that because of copyright laws
(or some othe lame reason) they can't "re-sell" the manuals and have to
destroy them.  Does anyone know what the exact reason is? 
Yes, it's the software licenses.  As a blanket policy to
protect themselves from lawsuits, no doubt, all the docs
and software is trashed.  (I haven't found that Dumpster yet.)
They sell PCs but without operating systems.  This is a
rotten situation all around.  Instead of encouraging
people to recognize that software is intellectual property
that can be bought and sold, it encourages them to find
the pirate brother-in-law who can fix up this computer
for them in an evening.

- John