Oral history interview with Thomas E. Kurtz, 2002

Title
Oral history interview with Thomas E. Kurtz, 2002
Caption
People ask, “Why didnʼt you copyright or patent protect or trademark BASIC?” Well, it wouldnʼt have been used if we did that. Nobody would have used it . . . . [IBM] wanted to make BASIC for one of their time-sharing systems --early versions --and we said, "Fine." They took our manual and they did it exactly, including what we regarded as mistakes. [Laughter] We said, “Fine. All you have to do is give us credit in the front of your manual.” Now if we had tried to protect BASIC in any way, trademark or anything like that, none of that would have happened.Kurtz, Thomas E. 2002. Thomas E. Kurtz, Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Emeritus: An Interview Conducted by Daniel Daily. Hanover, NH, June 20, 2002
Date Created
2002
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License
Rights Holder
Trustees of Dartmouth College
Filename
Kurtz_Thomas.pdf
Case Number
1
Item Number
Grp 1, Item 3

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