Excerpted from message dated 05-22-96, Alex King to All:

AK>What surpises me is that if the DAP CD roms are 
  >subscription x number of times a year or whatever, why is noone
  >willing to sell me an old copy.  Do you have to send the old ones
  >back to IBM, or do you sign an agreement not to sell them on?

Hi Alex--

    I assume you are referring to the DevCon (The IBM Developer
Connection) subscription CD-ROMs.  The license agreement states that
"You may not rent, lease, sell, sublicense, assign or otherwise transfer
The DevCon..." [There are some exceptions for some of the content, but
not for the whole volume.]  The license to each volume of DevCon expires
when the next volume comes out, again with some exceptions; you may
continue to use the toolkits and the fixpaks after your subscription
expires.

AK>Why is the documentation for 32 bit calls not in the public domain
  >anyway? Surely it's in IBM's interests to have it as widely 
  >available as possible. Perhaps they make too much from 
  >selling the likes of the DAP CDs.  Short sighted in my view.

    The documentation is already widely available.  "Widely available"
doesn't necessarily mean "free."  If you can't buy it elsewhere (it
comes with many commercial compilers) you can always buy it from IBM,
either on CD-ROM (SK2T-2176-05 is the part number of the current "Online
Library/Omnibus Edition/OS/2 Collection") or as individual hard-copy
volumes.

    I doubt that IBM is getting rich selling DevCon.  Currently, you get
seven CD-ROMs per quarter (four of them for OS/2 itself, two for LAN
systems, and one for AIX), plus an explanatory hard-copy newsletter.
Even if, as I am, you are interested only in the OS/2 material, this is
16 CD-ROMs per year containing the latest software tools and information
for OS/2 developers (some of which is not obtainable anywhere else) for
only $199 (US) per year, retail.  IMO, If you develop commercially, you
can't afford not to subscribe.  I develop utilities only for my own
amazement, but I still consider my subscription a bargain.

    Regards,

          --Murray

___
 * MR/2 2.25 #120 * There is no such thing as a free lunch

--- Maximus/2 2.02