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Shakedown: How the Business Software Alliance Operates
An anonymous source writes: "I'm a faculty member at a public university which the
Business Software Alliance contacted in a bulk mailing last Fall. Stupidly, our IT department invited them in to 'explain' licensing to us, and now we are trying to fend off an audit on our computers (public and private). Two questions: what kind of leverage does the BSA actually have against us? And does anyone have war stories, successful or otherwise, of their encounters with the BSA?" Although Slashdot is running this story as from an anonymous reader, we have contacted the source and believe the story is factual and the appeal for help is real. Consider this Slashdot's contribution to National Copyright Awareness Week.
The source continues: "The report that the BSA gave to our administration was filled with scary stories about other schools who tried to resist, so unless there's some hard evidence to the contrary I suspect our university will just roll over. We were told that:
- auditing software *will* be installed on every campus machine;
- the license for every program, on every machine, must be produced upon demand;
- failure to produce licenses for all commercial or shareware software will constitute prima facie evidence of illegal possession, with penalties that could range from the confiscation of the machine to the firing of the user;
- and this includes computers *personally* owned by faculty."
To those that side with the BSA/or bring up the point of double standards as per the GPL...
The problem that we are discussing is terribly written licensing agreements (and, in particular, the "end user" variety, or EULA) that force the user of the software to do all sorts of stupid things. Greedy companies overcharge for their software, taking advantage of their ability to enforce the license after you buy the software, and counting on the fact that stores don't let you return opened packages to get you to agree.
Furthermore, companies would really love it if you bought 2 $400 copies of MS office/photoshop/etc for your two computers at home, no matter how ridiculous that may sound.
And the BSA enforces all this. Legally. And they are real jerks about it too. Rather than nicely try to help with licensing issues (ala here, let us help you find the most legal and cost-effective solution for you), they attempt to fuX0r your business/institution by abusing the legal system.
Our governement did not inyend the legal system to be used as a club. The purpose of the courts was not originally to threaten costly lawsuits. I'll bet if the founding fathers discovered that the legal system they envisioned as helping freedom and protecting free speech was being used to cut off people's internet, remove content from google, and close down things like napster, they would be appalled.
So the BSA, and what it does, is wrong. "Well," you ask, "how is this different from the GPL?" Well here it is:
The GPL was designed specifically to keep companies from using free code (the "solution" to the problem outlined above) from being used in products that abuse the system (i.e. are "commericial"). Not all commercial software abuses the system, but a whole bunch does. The idea behind Open Source software was to kill the companies that perpetuate these evils by underpricing them with software that fundamentally cannot ever be used to screw over the consumer. The GPL ensure that these companies will not be able to profit by incorporating this "free code" into their commercial products. Otherwise, Microsoft would just use all the open source'd code to further their screwing over of the consumer.
Basically the issue is this: There is a problem with licensing. The GPL is a license which is meant to help fix the problem with licensing. If licenses such as the GPL (and every single EULA ever made) are banned, then the GPL will have served its purpose. Until such a time, the GPL must be enforced.
(mods, please don't mark this "offtopic" or "redundant" I think this post clearly shows some crucial points in the issue at hand)
a 5 well deserved, very enlightning post.
A message from the system administrator: 'I've upped my priority. Now up yours.'
There is a Scientology (office?, church?) building right next to the Microsoft campus in Redmond.
So your basic reasoning is that this is all a good thing because it's happening to people you don't care about.
Exactly!
Insightful!! Who marked this as insightful? You and your moderators have just been trolled. And well done to the orginal poster as well.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
LOL. You weren't trolling, you were trolled. The original poster was joking. It was bait, you took it. He's sitting back laughing. I'm sitting back laughing. All of the moderators that marked him as funny are sitting back laughing. Don't take it personally, but he got you.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Why the hell do people keep praising a successful troll and assuming the one who got trolled was suckered? More often than not, a successful troll doesn't prove a damn thing about the gullibility of the one who got trolled, because there really are people rude and stupid enough to say something exceptionally brain-dead and really mean it. So no matter how hard a troll tries to fake it, he can't hold a candle to the real thing. So of course people end up assuming the troll is genuine. To do otherwise will end up making you err in the opposite direction by assuming that people with genuinely offensive positions are just trolling.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
This post is a last resort.... To Lisa, whom I met at the Brooks Café in Seattle last Saturday. Lisa, I lost your phone number and I'm trying to figure out how to reach you! Oh, that magical night we had. I never believed in love at first sight until I met you. I remember talking with you at length about the Bisuness Software Alliance, so I thought maybe, maybe you will read this Slashdot forum. Oh, I hope I will get modded up to something where you will see it!!! I love you so much and I don't know what I would do without you! Love, Gerard P.S. if you do get this, meet me at the same spot this Saturday at 10!!!