Page:Code Swaraj - Carl Malamud - Sam Pitroda.djvu/140

Code Swaraj surrounding the perhaps public domain core. It would thus be impossible to make the work available without violating the publisher’s copyright. I believe this is nonsense and not supported by the U.S. Copyright Act. There is no copyright in font selection or pagination, only an actual co-author of a paper is entitled to share in the copyright.

Now, I didn’t just make up my discussion of the law. It was based on intensive research and reviewed by a distinguished panel of copyright experts that joined my advisory board for this project. I was pretty sure we had the law right. We weren't just making this stuff up and blowing smoke.

It was clear they were going to drag us through the mud in a floor debate. I would have been fine with that, but it was worse. They informed me that at least eight of the sections had already instructed their delegates to oppose the resolution, so no matter how eloquent or persuasive I was, the vote was already cooked. I think they were wrong on every single item of substance, but I believed them when they said we would get slaughtered on the floor of the House of Delegates if we had the temerity to appear. I saw no win in this and cancelled my trip two days before I was supposed to fly to New York.

Money Troubles Surface Once Again

I might have gone forward with the massacre on the floor of the House of Delegates, but I had a second issue that came up. I had been very careful with our $250,000, having spent only two thirds of the money. My thoughts were that we would ramp up spending after the ABA meeting and how we ramped up spending would depend on how that all went. In early June I had submitted my report to the foundation. They were supposed to make our second payment on July 31. I didn’t hear back from my program manager or the foundation grants staff after submitting the report, so I checked in a few times to ask if the report was OK, if we were on track. Looks good is what I heard.

As July 31 neared, I checked my bank account frequently, but no deposits. Then, two days before their payment was due I got a note saying they wouldn’t be making the payment. The reason was we were in noncompliance on the grant because we hadn’t spent enough money. I was to submit detailed budgets explaining where we had deviated from the forecast and, more importantly, exactly where we would be spending the money by detailed categories. There was no indication if I successfully spelled out in detail our future plans if the second payment would be approved. In other words, we had shifted from that