Slightly related... I worked at IBM on Lisp projects (pre- and post- Common Lisp), most notably on Axiom, a computer algebra system in Lisp, which is now free software. This was all pre-internet.
On request I would create a "tape" containing all of our source code and tool chain to send by physical mail. There was never any question about protecting the software.
On request I would create a "tape" containing all of our source code and tool chain to send by physical mail. There was never any question about protecting the software.