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Virginia Beach Pays Microsoft $129,000
An unnamed correspondent writes: "As a follow-up to a story a few weeks ago about Microsoft's surprise audit of the city of Virginia Beach municipal government's office PCs, the results are in. This story in the local newspaper tells us that they just sent a check to Microsoft for $129,000. Apparently they couldn't find the paperwork for 800+ licenses (out of 6000+), so rather than spend more time trying to track down the invoices/receipts they just sent a check to try and settle. No word back from Microsoft yet as to whether this is sufficient to close the matter." Of course, that much money (just the money they're paying to take care of uncertain licenses) could probably also buy CD burners and enough blanks to create no-license-hassles copies of Linux or Free / Open / NetBSD for every computer the city owns.
The first thing to note is that the 'raids' are taking place in Virginia. I don't think this is accidental: Virginia is the first state to pass UCITA.
I suspect that what Microsoft is doing is attacking in the place where it has the best chance of winning, and then using the precedents (if anyone tries to counter in court) to bully governments and companies in the other states where UCITA is not the law.
Microsoft must be getting desperate for revenue growth sources. Somebody at the corporate offices probably realized that most people are not fastidious about keeping 'proof of purchase' certificates, and realized that recharging legitimate owners was a potential revenue stream.
This is absolute bullshit.
1. You insinuate that they really had those 800 licenses. Riiight... yet another little guy being kicked around by "Big Brother" @_@
2. Anyone who's spewing nonsense about having them switch to Linux obviously doesn't realize the cost of moving an organization from one operating system to another.
3. Microsoft was in the right here, they enforced their licensing clause. Get over it.
Wouldn't use a free system unless it had a very good implementation of Solitaire and MineSweeper.
Linux just doesn't cut it when it comes to those two apps.
A large monopolistic company in the pocket of a candidate dedicated to the proposition that hard copy records are just too innaccurate and we should rely soley on the electronic tally - suing a government that can't produce the hardcopy record of the the number of 'ballots' cast for said software product.
for the sound that the UN black helicopters make when they're hovering over your house while aiming the mass delusional raygun at you. Didn't you get the secret memo on that?
Aren't there more effective ways to buy votes with $129,000 than forcing everyone in the city to use linux? Oh wait, never mind, wrong story.
--
The shareholder is always right.
This reminds me of the FAST visit one of my former employers suffered. FAST (the Fedaration Against Software Theft if memory serves me well), sent a polite note to the head of IT offering an `instructive talk' about software licensing. This really constituted a fact finding mission from a FAST operative, as he carefully milked our IT people (including me) for our knowledge on licensing issues.
...
A few weeks later FAST `offered' to audit our license situation. This was a thinly veiled accusation that are licenses were not upto snuff.
It turned out that unscrupulous or unknowing resellers (including Compaq) had failed to sell us the required licenses. They knowingly sold us systems with NT installed on them that we couldn't legally connect together on a LAN (no client licenses). In Compaq's case, they had sold us the licenses, but conveniently forgotten to ship them with the computers.
Another problem was that too many staff had access to the software lockers, and many of our Windows 95 licenses had gone walkabout along with the CDs
The upshot of all this was that we had to buy several hundred licenses, many of which we had legally bought already. My boss also started to read those shrinkwrapped licenses *very* carefully. The client license problem was happily resolved by installing Linux on the NT file and print servers.
Chris
Now, that was easy, since hardly any organization had thousands or ten thousands of VAXstations that must be licensed.
This is very different in todays world. Even if there is such a thing as a central purchasing department they have to deal with just a helluva mess regarding software licenses, upgrade licenses and client licenses.
To make matters worse there very often is no such thing as a central purchasing department but every department runs its separate purchasing. This is especially evident in larger communities.
Considering that the blokes could have bought exactly one copy of - say - SuSE Linux and deploy it (including most applications) as they saw fit. That should have left a bunch of cash to hire good Linux administrators, especially considering the manpower you need to maintain and administer an NT network.
Unfortunately this eposide does nothing to impact Micro$ofts image, since this is so much down the toilet already that I really don't think playing bully towards communities can impact it any further.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
With all due respect, but I still think a M$ network is easier to maintain than a *Nix one.
With all due respect, NT network administration is a nightmare. Try and remotely adminster a large NT setup out of the box. Sure, you can buy expensive and buggy add on software that makes remote admin possible, but it's not as easy as administering Unix. The problem is that clueless bosses and newbies see NT's GUI and think ``this must be easier than Unix''. The truth is that the investment in a little Unix knowledge pays off much better than investing in an NT `solution'.
If you want some more info on this check out http://www.unix-vs-nt.org/kirch/.
Chris
You're right in one point. Administering a Windows system (let alone thousands) is hard. I disagree with the other part of your statement however.
You have a point that setting up a Linux box is hard for Average Q User. Expertise that can set up a reference distribution exists and can be bought. When a Linux box is set up well it runs and runs and runs. From that point on adminstering a UNIX type box is significantly easier.
You don't have to deal with everybodyisroot. Remote administration is easier and you have no such thing as a screwed up registry within a couple weeks.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
A suggestion that this city move to Linux with StarOffice is most certainly not the answer and shows a tremendous lack of understanding of the problem they had.
From the original story, the issue was that while the city IT shop had decided to choose Wordperfect Suite as their standard office productivity tool, that wasn't what their users wanted.
Rather than slog their way through using Wordperfect, the users instead just went ahead and installed Microsoft Office without permission.
So now they find themselves in a position where there is rampant piracy all because the IT staff did not listen to it's users when making a software buying decision.
And you think Linux/StarOffice is the answer? All that would result in is the users bringing Win95 CD's from home to get their computers to a point where they found them useful again.
IT has to talk to it's users, they have to listen to their users, they have to provide solutions taht the users want!
Microsoft is a private corporation. Do they actually have any right to check on whether the software you use is legal? I realise that the police/copyright theft department/whatever have legal rights to find out whether you're running licensed applications, but does the company that created them? Certainly they're not within their rights to come in uninvited. Could the city have simply asked Microsoft to go away?
Also, what effect will this have on the use of Microsoft software in the future within the city? I would imagine it'd have little affect, once the platform is chosen it tends to stay the same for a long time. On the other hand this sort of stuff causes much aggro. I say bring back site licenses.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
People need to stop glibly saying that you should just use Linux - Windows is the best quality software available, and people should pay for it accordingly.
Incorrect - the software that runs on top of Windows is the best-quality software available. Windows itself, however, is of debatable quality. I know if Windows had worked as well as I thought it should have, I would never have bothered to learn how to use Linux. Windows has probably been the best marketing tool Linux could ever ask for, and it's usually software other than Windows itself that keeps people tied to the platform.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Proprietary software vendors attack free software by invoking "total cost of ownership." An expensive operating system will pay for itself because of zero-administration features, because it's more stable, because it's the standard.
Have you ever talked to a salesman who said, "And how will you account for all your licenses?" Microsoft's raid on VA Beach vividly demonstrates an addition to the TCO of proprietary software.
<scene location="some IS dept., some city">
<voice type="hoarse" accent="Italian">
It has come to our attention that some of the software you posess may not have proper licenses. This wounds us deeply, as it shows a lack of respect for us.
However, we will give you a chance to make
It would be most unfortunate, if you fail to make amends. In this business, unfortunate, accidents, happen, accidents we could help, prevent.
I am sure you will do the right thing, for I know you respect me, Don Gates.
</scene>
</voice>
</music>
With apologies to any responsible businessmen or Italians out there.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Why does everyone assume that it was M$ Windows that was causing the problems? This audit was for ALL Microsoft products. Very few users (of M$ products at least) actually install their own operating system. Rather, they're more likely to have bought the M$ Office Suite, Encarta, and similar products. Although using Linux has its advantages, there isn't a Word equivalent editor, or a presentation tool like PowerPoint that could be used by any braindead city employee.
The scary part about this story is that:
"Like most software companies, Microsoft includes contracts with its merchandise that explain that the company reserves the right to ask consumers for proof of purchase and an inventory of what it uses. The rule applies not only to governments and privately owned companies but to individuals."
And it appears that no one has challenged this provision. This means that M$ could go into your house, and demand that you provide an actual inventory of what products you use, and proofs of purchase. If you've ever bought a laptop or any hardware that came with the M$ operarting system, or anything else from M$ you could be up next. Got to love those shrinkwrap licenses!
Thalia
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Have you used Star Orifice??
Yes. And I didn't forget to install truetype fonts, so it works perfectly with documents that were written using the same fonts by Microsoft lamers like you (Microsoft formats are so shitty, minimal change in font totally screws up the layout, so if you run StarOffice with minimal set of X fonts, most of documents will be be barely recognizable -- but then, I dare you to run Word on Windows with deleted Arial and Times New Roman fonts).
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.