In March 1993, the FSF received the following letter, which I think is<br>worth sharing, along with the response that I sent. The letter<br>was accompanied by a pseudo-framed "certificate of destruction",<br>suitable for posting on the wall, but which I never saw because the<br>office staff destroyed it.
March 19, 1993
Free Software Foundation<br>675 Massachusetts Avenue<br>Cambridge, MA 021139
Dear License or Sales Department:
I am the Records Administrator and also in charge of Third Party<br>Software and Documentation at Hitachi Computer Products (America), Inc.<br>in Santa Clara, CA. In the process of doing a records inventory, I came<br>across these manuals with software. I have checked with the Engineering<br>managers, and they do not have a need for this information.
At Hitachi, we adhere to the terms and conditions of contract<br>agreements. I did not find a contract between Comeau and Hitachi,<br>therefore this information has been destroyed as of 3-17-93:
The GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual Emacs version 18 for Unix users,<br>Edition 0.1 Beta. Destruction certificate HCP006.
Please sign and date these originals, return one to me at the above<br>address, and keep the other for your files.
Sincerely,
TIC Department
Received Destruction Certificate from Hitachi Computer Products<br>(America), Inc.
Name: ______________________________<br>Date: ____________________<br>Title: _________________________
25 March 1993
Hitachi Computer Products (America) Inc.<br>3101 Tasman Drive<br>Santa Clara, CA 95054
Dear Records Administrator,
I am the president of the Free Software Foundation. Today I received a<br>piece of mail that does not fit into this universe. It said that you<br>found an old Emacs Lisp Reference Manual and ``destroyed'' it.
This Certificate of Confusion, number A, is to certify that I am well<br>and truly confused.
* People often throw away old books, but why write to tell the<br>publisher about it?
* Most people adhere to the terms of contracts---but only the<br>contracts that they have {\it signed}. Yet you destroyed this manual<br>because you had {\it not signed} a contract. Strange, no?
* Why should we take your word for it that you really destroyed<br>this manual? Do you have any shreds or ashes that we can identify?<br>If not, why didn't you save them? Who are you trying to fool?
* Who in the world is Comeau, anyway?
Please sign and date these originals, return one to me at the above<br>address, and keep the other as a testimonial.
Sincerely yours,<br>Richard Stallman,<br>President and<br>Chief GNUisance
Received Confusion Certificate from Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Name: ________________________________________
Date: ________________________________________
Title: _______________________________________
The records administrator signed it and mailed it back!