I read in sci.electronics.design that Winfield Hill
-edu wrote (in
) about 'Copyright on HP service manuals',
on Fri, 22 Apr 2005:

That letter from Agilent's counsel is going to bring a massive
response from me as director of a Harvard University research
laboratory, directed to the relevant authorities at Agilent to
get the policy changed. It's dramatically counter-productive to
their own business interests, and it's manifestly unfair to the
owners of old HP / Agilent equipment who for one reason or another
no longer have an operating or service manual, and who cannot get
one from Agilent.

The crux is whether indeed Agilent have been habitually refusing, or
will refuse, to supply. The letter by itself is unobjectionable; someone
else should not be selling (or even providing free) a copyrighted work.

For Agilent to close them off from a solution
to their problem is to render their bought and paid-for equipment
useless. It also means Agilent is capriciously denying the implied
warranty of merchantability for their older products; the product
can hardly do what it is supposed to do if the owner doesn't know
what button to push, or how to interpret the panel reading. And
it means Agilent is denying the owners' right to his own self-help
in repairing something he purchased fair and square. Moreover, it
takes a big step toward removing from the public weal the value of
old instruments, no longer manufactured, which in many cases are
not replaced by newer instruments performing the same function.

All the above is totally pertinent IFFI Agilent refuse to supply.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
There are two sides to every question, except
'What is a Moebius strip?'
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk