Until recently I wasn’t even aware that there was contention over the authorship of the famous seasonal poem, ’Twas the Night Before Christmas. You know the one that begins:

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house…

One of the oldest and most popular Christmas poems ever was written in the early 19th century. Though its author is disputed, with the poem being attributed to both Clement Clarke Moore and Henry Livingston Jr. over the years, it was definitely first published on Dec. 23, 1823 in the Troy Sentinel newspaper in upstate New York.

You can read more about that controversy here, here and here.

Seems passing off other’s work as one’s own may be as common in amateur radio as it is in literature.

Pete Juliano, N6QW has closed his blog and vowed to never publish any of his own designs for free again. Not just because they have a way of showing up as commercial projects available for sale on eBay by Chinese sources, but that’s one of the reasons he cites for going cold turkey on the art of sharing his work.

And then there is DL2MAN who this week strongly warned those contemplating obtaining the NanoRig version of the (tr)uSDX that it’s an unauthorized clone that won’t be supported by the (tr)uSDX team, nor will the official software work on it.

It doesn’t require the gift of prophecy to predict fewer interesting projects being available in the future thanks to the blatant theft of intellectual property and the radio amateur’s unhealthy propensity to always strive for the lowest dollar goods without regard for how he gets it.