In my father’s day every scientist and engineer paid a regular tax to CRC for access to his table of logarithms, etc. His copy of that book which he gave me when I went off to engineering school is so worn that he rebound it in a piece of cordoroy. These days many pay a tax to Wolfram for something analogous. So that CRC considers Wolfram a very threatening competitor shouldn’t surprise anybody.

What a sad story! It’s really amazing how common this pattern is; a public good emerges. A private entity finds a means to gain ownership of it. Private entity then proceeds to destroy the public good. It’s enough to make you adopt the GNU license.