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Re: V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai: Inventor of e-mail honored by Smithsonian

2012-02-27 17:39:04
At 5:51 PM -0800 2/18/12, Dave CROCKER wrote:

For reference, I just sent this message:

The Washington Post article now has this text:

Clarification: A number of readers have accurately pointed out that electronic messaging predates V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai's work in 1978. However, Ayyadurai holds the copyright to the computer program called"email," establishing him as the creator of the "computer program for [an] electronic mail system" with that name, according to the U.S. Copyright Office.

The Smithsonian has acquired the tapes, documentation, copyrights, and over 50,000 lines of code that chronicle the invention of e-mail. The lines of code that produced the first "bcc," "cc," "to" and "from" fields were the brainchild of then-14-year0old inventor V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai.

Which seems to miss several points (such as the difference between a copyright and a trademark or patent, the difference between email in general and one specific program called EMAIL, and when to/cc/bcc/from came into use).

-- 
Randall Gellens
Opinions are personal;    facts are suspect;    I speak for myself only
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