I can believe that DHS was pressured into using Windows, most likely it was someone from congress. Around year 1998 I talked at a conference with a consultant who was telling me that Corps of Engineers was pressured into replacing PDP-11s with PCs and Windows, to control dams on Columbia River. Someone at the Corps had a better idea: they set up a PC based system to run in paralel with PDP. All inputs were fed into both systems and PCs did not have control execution previlege. After a while it was demonstrated that number and time of blue screens made Windows based 'system' unfeasible.

In this particular case, the original author has already been compensated when the scope was first sold. It seems to me that requiring that the original author (or his successor) to be once again compensated for something that he was already compensated for is not proper, and forcing someone to pay again for what they have already paid for is depriving the current owner of
the equipment.

Anyway, even though I have been making a living writing commercial software for over two decades, in this case I would side with the person that wants a copy of the CD. There is law and treaty, and then there is what makes sense and is the right thing to do between people.

All I have to say about this is....

"Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet. Whenever a copyright law is to be made or altered, then the idiots assemble."
--Mark Twain