I Did Not See This One Coming

I didn’t see this one coming, I don’t think anyone could’ve:

To All Members of the George Mason University Community:

The University will not renew the institution-wide license for the citation management software EndNote when it expires on November 30, 2008.  Because of pending litigation between Thomson Reuters, the owner of the EndNote product, and the University/Commonwealth of Virginia, Mason’s Office of University Counsel has advised that this license cannot be renewed.  This means that students, faculty and staff who were supplied with EndNote software under the University’s license must stop using and delete the software from their computers by November 30, 2008.   The software will be deleted from computers in University computer labs and classrooms, and must also be deleted in college/school labs.

We strongly encourage members of University community who rely on EndNote for their academic and administrative work to consider migrating to Zotero right away. Developed and supported by Mason’s Center for History and New Media (CHNM), Zotero is a full-featured research platform that already enjoys broad popularity within higher education, http://www.zotero.org/documentation/institutions_recommending_zotero . Staff in the University Libraries, assisted by their colleagues in Information Technology and CHNM, provide training services and support for Zotero, and will assist individuals to migrate EndNote-based files into Zotero.

(Copied from E-mail)

Oh, right! The whole “Thomson Reuters is suing GMU and the State of Virginia” thing.