Slashdot Mirror
MS Tweaks Ill-Received Licensing Plan
ahooton writes "C|Net is
reporting that
Microsoft has updated it's
Software Assurance licensing program. The company has admitted that it's initial approach angered a large number of customers. No huge difference in pricing or terms -- changes are comprised of bundling some training and support. The one interesting concession is that corporate licensees of Microsoft Office can now use that suite on a home computer as well." What a concession. (Paddo points to this similar article on Australian IT via News.com.au.)
I was thinking they were going to implode soon.
Business models can change....
Open source- the greatest equalizer mankind has ever seen.
...rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
You can put a dress on a pig, but it is still a pig.
"There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
The one interesting concession is that corporate licensees of Microsoft Office can now use that suite on a home computer as well Is that similar to the licensing (myth?) that someone once told me, where if you use a license of office so often at work, you can install it on your home computer without purchasing an additional license?
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
Between this, and all of the charity software donations that they're making, they're basically changing thier public perception, while maintaining their draconian licensing terms.
I have to give them kudos, even if only for the sake of sheer diabolicalness!
"The one interesting concession is that corporate licensees of Microsoft Office can now use that suite on a home computer as well." You mean that under the previous terms I couldn't before now???? Oops!!!
"Get off the cross - we need the wood" - Tori Amos
And my finger-prints? DNA and retinal scan?
I suggest you read Slashdot
Software pirates are the main reason these draconian licensing agreements have come into existence. There used to be a time when it was possible to buy a piece of software and be assured that you could move it from machine to machine so long as you only installed it on one machine at a time. Not so now because disreputable companies have taken to installing a single copy of software on all their machines.
What is worse is that there is a large group of people dedicated to making excuses for and promoting these software pirates.
I'm not saying that I like draconian licensing agreements, but it's easy to understand where the impetus to create them comes from when the goodwill of the software publisher is exploited time and again.
I have been pwned because my
Okay, we won't call it piracy if you've be brainwashed into our cult and take a copy of our scriptures home with you. Soon you'll be quoting them to all of your old friends.
There really isn't any beneficial changes here. People's gripes were largely with prices and restrictive measures that were associated with the new scheme, not what kind of "assurances" they were recieving ("assurances" that they thought they were already getting for free with older Microsoft products and that they usually get for free with other venodrs' software products: real support, limited training, and manufacturer accountability).
I still don't understand why Microsoft calls their scheme "Software Assurance". This implies that by being forced into expensive licensing schemes you are entitled to an extra degree of software security and performance.
Security and performance should be qualities that sell your product initially, something to be proud of as a manufacturer, not aspects of a product that you get only after paying annual fees.
Large companies end up paying tons in license fees for a plethora of different software products that fit individual needs. They could instead find a few open source products and pay the salaries of a few programmers to customize them to their needs, or outright integrate them. Lotus Notes for mail, Novell for meta, People Soft for CRM, Windows clients, etc. Instead, you could take one strong open source CRM, expand upon it, integrate web based mail (or even make a quick client), and integrate their features to work flawlessly, all running in an open source browser that is running on Linux terminals (which removes the need for de-centralized administration) - instead of forcing the admins to find ways around making all of these closed products work together in hack jobs, with expensive tools like Zen Works deployed just to install and configure software on expensive Windows workstations - or worse. Oh well - I'm being a square headed open source zealot again. I'll go lay down.
What's really ironic is that I'm using WIndows 98 right now, because I screwed my Linux kernel and don't feel like fixing it. My girl just bought me "Enter the Matrix" for the Game Cube man....been busy.....damn agents.
Well, there goes my excuse for not being able to view corporate memos and write designs and reports at home.
This is one of the most common mistakes made with the English language, and it really irks me. Sometimes even seasoned print journalists do this!
Incorrect:
The cheese is comprised of milk protein and fat.
The cheese composes milk protein and fat.
Correct:
The cheese comprises milk protein and fat.
The cheese is composed of milk protein and fat.
Note: There is no correct usage of "[noun] is comprised of [nouns]". For additional references, please consult dictionary.com.
Allowing Office users to use the product at home with a corporate license will just help to keep people using office. People who want to work from home are either going to pirate office or install open office (a lot more people are learning that it works well enough for most uses.) This is a good way for them to keep their domanance in the productivity category.
Go away, or I will replace you with a very small shell script.
Finally, Microsoft makes a concession we knew had to happen at some point.
Now to wait for the "Linux is much better than Windows" concession...
When you don't have a leg to stand on, don't even get up.
Dragon Action Figures
Wow. Never heard that one before. Jackass.
So...who else has been doing this since Office 97?
The company is eager to create a steadier revenue stream from its software products, particularly its cash cow, Office, and its desktop operating system businesses
Because a near-monopoly isn't enough ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I think linux might be getting on their nerves. See a little competition does work.
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
Microsoft seems to be getting the picture. While it looks like they are making just a couple of strategic concessions to try to maintain their stranglehold on the market. However, I don't think that they can stem the tide so easily. Eventually, they will have to make concessions to just about everyone -- i.e., they have to reduce their price pretty much across the board, because the market, having real competition, won't sustain their artificially high prices anymore (how do you think they got their $40 billion, not to mention Gates' 40?).
Well, there goes my excuse for not being able to view corporate memos and write designs and reports at home.
;)
Just tell them you can't afford a computer that will run it. What does the latest version of Office require now? A Cray?
The coolest voice ever.
A Microsoft spokesman says they have informed their OEM partners that it has become illegal to ship computers designed for home use without Microsoft Office. The company says it is responding to a report that says 95% of computers shipped without Microsoft Office on them end up having a pirated copy installed on them within 90 days.
...their whole "Stop people from moving to OSS" strategy we have seen lately ?
If they weren't scrared of loosing their market I doubt they would change anything.
--- No 16-bit support in Vista? Half of our modules still use it! ---
IMO: Here we go, our daily dose of M$ on /. Remember folks, any publicity can be good publicity for the company being discussed. Whether you love M$ or hate them, consider how many times you look at the word "Microsoft" every day on the internet. It is in your mind, millions of minds. An article about M$ on one website that's negative, another that's positive. It doesn't matter anymore, the lines have been blurred in most people's minds.
Hey, listen. What's that?
Another coin drops in the M$ cup.
Render unto Gates.
There are already better options out there:
And I can have them all installed on a new system in a few minutes, without any fear of licensing issues at all. If Microsoft has enough money to buy SCO a win in its lawsuit, we just switch to an OS they can't touch because AT&T already lost the fight..
Security and performance should be qualities that sell your product initially, something to be proud of as a manufacturer, not aspects of a product that you get only after paying annual fees.
Security is hardly a static entity. What's the more convincing sell, the idea that the product is already secure, period, or the idea that the product was as secure as possible when released and can be continually upgraded to maintain that level of security?
The coolest voice ever.
Don't know about the Software Assurance program, but the academic Campus Agreement 3.0 has had the "Work at Home" clauses in it for a while now. Though in traditional MS fashion they've made one minor change in the new revision 3.1... from what I understand from reading the pages, we can't let employees check out a set of install discs and the Volume License key anymore.
Now the only option is to have employees bring in their machines while we install (don't even want to think about the liability issues there) or buy official MS copies of the media, for $7-20 each in minimum quantities of 25, which supposedly come with their own keys. If we have 1500 employees who each want a copy of Office XP, at $7 a copy we now have a nice added expense of $10,500, not to mention the logistics hassles of media ordering and inter-departmental chargebacks.
Of course, those new keys are the 1-machine-only activation-enabled version, while the older agreement let us give out the activation-free Volume License keys and just keep a few sets of CDs at the helpdesk for check-out.
Ugh. Gotta love MS.
(posted anon to protect my employer)
... how many people here are still using Office?
Anyone?
I made the switch to OO.o two years ago and haven't looked back. The only thing I miss is third party plugins, which isn't a merit of the product itself.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
My boss asked me to take home some work that was all compiled in various Word, Excel, and whatever that PDF-like Microsoft format is (Visio I think). I lied and said that I only have Linux installed at home and use Star Office (which is 2/3 true). He asked me how I could afford to pay for a Unix workstation and not Windows, which he thought was "free" with each PC. When I showed him Redhat.com and explained what Linux was to him, he was truly puzzled. He had no idea that there were any other operating systems other then Windows, Unix, and Apple/Mac. This is coming from a guy that has been in a management position within a rather large tech company for 6 years.
50%
75%
90%
99%
What's the magic number, Rosco?
I have been pwned because my
Master Bill Gates, Chief Architect of Matrix^H^H^H^H^Hicrosoft, in response to customers' whining at license changes, said in his dark mask:
I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.
From the article:
LaBrunerie said Microsoft surveyed 2,500 customers in the past year in an effort to find ways to mend fences with them.
Hmmm I wonder if they interviewed any Slashdotters...
Microsoft:What can we to make you pay us an annual fee?
Slashdotter: I'll never join the dark side!
Oh wait, it says they interviewed customers, NM.
"Much work is lost, for the lack of a little more." -Edward H. Harriman
The most hits for this website come when microsoft articles start popping up.
People who want to work from home are either going to pirate office or install open office (a lot more people are learning that it works well enough for most uses.)
Actually, I'd wager they're just going to pirate Office, period. The ongoing corporate perception is that documents produced with non-Microsoft Office suites still stand a moderate-to-slight chance of not fully working with the officially sanctioned applications. When critical company information and timetables are involved, who but the most enthuastic advocates of alternative office suites, or the most technically adept workers who know exactly what's compatible, both of whom are very much in the minority with respect to the whole corporation, would ever consider using a non-standard office suite?
The coolest voice ever.
I'm currently downloading the openoffice.org suite for Windows. I already have it installed for my Linux system. 11 more minutes and the download will be complete..
This is where P2P and bittorrent really becomes useful. For sharing open source software, not commercial stuff.
You'll never be happy that other way. You'll always be locked in to not seeing the source, having features imposed on you that harm your privacy, and you'll end up in a cage essentially fiddling around with *settings* for closed binaries changed at whim by someone up there.
That will be your work and your life. Piracy affects the user adversely and directly.
This thread is about licensing, not about pricing models or Microsoft stock.
Everything being equal, Microsoft could make the same amount of money and charge the same prices as they do now with a simple "book" license or an "all your base" license.
But all things are not equal because some people are not willing to pay the price of the software, or are only willing under threat of legal action. That's where the draconian licensing agreements come from.
How many people, who work from home on a regular basis, DON'T use a laptop with docking station set-up these days, and carry the ONE device back and forth ?
As a hardware support monkey that is the general setup where I work.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
How much longer until they can't compete with free? Well, it looks like theyve figured that out. If you can't beat em', join em'. Looks like mIcrosoft is just allowing the home users to do what they've been doing all along; Use MS products without buying them.
In the end, they make all of their majot bucks from large companies and schools. But what happens if the companies and schools stop using MS software. Will it do enough good for Microsoft?
MS gives stuff away to schools = EVIL!!!
MS eases licensing plan and gives stuff away = EVIL!!!
CEO diversifies his stock portfolio = EVIL and End of MS!!!
MS loses a sale in Germany = End of MS!!!
MS releases earnings = They are too successful. EVIL!!!
Gates donates to India = EVIL!!
Jesus Christ!
I'd really like to know just what would be considered a positive for/from Microsoft around here. Really. What would it take for them to get an iota of respect beyond Gates saying that he runs Linux at home?
OK. I've been karma whoring again. But this post should take care of that. I can go to bed with a clean soul and neutral karma.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Sssssh! Not so loud /. ! (:o
Someone from Microsoft might read
"Laywers are converging on your house as we speak..."
I'll admit it. I use Office. Office 2003 beta, even. I'm not one to often run beta software as my primary system unless there is a compelling reason. The redesigned Outlook provides me with the reason -- I haven't found a good replacement for Outlook yet -- Evolution doesn't cut it. I've used pretty much everything out there: WordPerfect/Quattro since DOS-based versions; MS Office since it was a DOS-based product; WordStar (yes - WordStar); IBM's Writing Assistant; StarOffice 5.2 and 6; and OO.o. Yep - OO.o is a great system. I actually like it a lot, but use Office exclusively at this point.
this is an honest question and not a troll. I actually want to know this:
do they still have the wording in their windows license agreement along the lines of "we can update your computer at will without your knowledge"? At work, we are waiting for that to be relaxed before we go ahead and push service pack 3 out to all 3000 of our desktops. Anyone know if there has been any changes to it?
Gentlemen...BEHOLD!
-Dr. Weird
Rome has announced concessions with the outlying provinces.
The Magistry of Taxation, realizing that the combination of tax farming and a lack of census taking led to anger and protests, will now attempt direct taxation, following 5 years of census. It is hoped that peace will once again return to the Empire, however, many Senators privately concede that Rome's reach has now exceeded it's grasp.
I remember the old licenses (XT, AT, Apple II, Commodore, etc) said that you could make copies so long as no two copies were used at once. Granted, that was before installable software.
Is that part of copyright law, or would the backup copy be the second one? Does a backup have to be of the distributed medium or can it be a backup of the installation tree?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
This is like asking why Unix programmers always down-play the success of Linux on a Sun developer's forum, or asking why Puerto Ricans always want the US out of Vieques (spelling?).
Remember, more than half of slashdot runs windows.
Oh wait, they said paid customers.. everyone around here pirates MS software.
What part of that was confusing you?
Does anybody know how much it costs to licence MS Office for a Campus, or for the entire school system of a state with say 5000 schools?
I would like to know how my tax money is spent...
Oh well, what the hell...
by Bold Marauder (673130) on Wednesday May 28, @12:30PM (#6053612)
You fail it!
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
Look in his title. WOOO!
- Chris
Microsoft and the other huge software companies have a real problem on their hands - they sell nothing. They sell air. Apple has an interesting twist - they sell user experience. We can't pick these things up with our hands and feel like we have something. And really, though a spreadsheet or word processor enables us to potentially work faster and easier, there's nothing special under the hood. Mmmaybe compatability from program to program is a plus with one package, but let's face it. The program is being marketed like it does the work all by itself, when it's just a tool, a very expensive tool that has no material value.
Everything common should be open source and free. The OS first, then programming languages, then communication tools, then office tools, etc. A strict licensing program for any of these is laughable and backward, unless it's truly innovative and unique. MS Word? Excel? Please.
People love to blame piracy for lost sales. I call it comeuppance. It's like living in a world in which we have to buy air, being charged too much, and stealing air so as to not die. Company X didn't invent the stuff; they just exploit it. Common computer programs should be treating as air, owned by all. But, of course, one day someone will own the air too, and we'll be here arguing whether the air thieves are pirates.
its = possession, ownership (NO apostrophe)
it's = it is (apostrophe needed)
A mnemonic device I learned in the fifth grade: you cannot say, "the cat ate it is food."
yes: the cat ate its damn food.
NO: the cat ate it's damn food.
...of Johnny Cochran in the South Park episode where he's talking to the jury and then pulls out a monkey?
"Look at the monkey. See the monkey? Look at the monkey."
None of this addresses any of the things that people really had a problem with regarding their licensing scheme. None of this is going to make a bit of difference to our shop. We're getting open source alternatives lined up and mapping out our "Escape from Redmond" plan with the idea of getting it done by the end of 2003. This simply couldn't be less relevant to us.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Tell us straight out that you do not believe in the Gospel of Christ; for you believe what you want in the Gospel and disbelieve what you want. You believe in yourself rather than in the Gospel. [St. Augustine, Against Faustus the Manichean, [17, 3], circa 400 AD, quoted from "The Faith of the Early Fathers", 1598]
Think you're smart? Prove it! Take the slashdot intelligence test.
My hope is that someday a noticeable fraction of the supposedly educated populace figures out the (immense) difference between "its" and "it's". Then maybe we can move on to more advanced usage.
C|Net is reporting that Microsoft has updated it's Software Assurance licensing program
*sigh*
-- http://frobnosticate.com
Go out of business.
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
You were hiding under that rock? I thought it landed on you and killed you!
Or too subtle for some of the moderators to see the MS reference....ah well, one man's wisdom is another man's birdcage liner.
The one interesting concession is that corporate licensees of Microsoft Office can
now use that suite on a home computer as well.
Now we can deal with the same macro virus problems AT HOME that we deal with AT WORK.
Oh Joy!
http://jesus.everdense.com/
Every time I see the word "assurance" in contexts such as "Microsoft Software Assurance," I think of Monty Python's Crimson Permanent Assurance...
And so, they sailed off into the ledgers of history, one by one, the financial capitals of the world crumbling under the might of their business acumen,... or so it would have been... if certain modern theories concerning the shape of the world had not proved to be... disastrously wrong.
It's strangely fitting.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Number 2: Mr. Gates, while you were gone I devised a way to make millions in legitimate revenue whilst still maintaining the ethos of an evil corporation. We have become a Hollywood talent agency.
it's "composed" The whole is composed of pieces. The pieces comprise the whole.
And you spelled "it's" instead of "its".
Why was this modded as a troll? It's simply someone appreciating the humour and wit of the parent post. Maybe offtopic, but I agree - such an inventive joke as replacing an "S" with a "$" is extremely worth of kudos.
Last post!
I was under the impression that the licensing already allowed corporate users to have a copy on a home machine as long as the copy at work was not being used by someone. At least that is what I was told by our MIS person.
The license for Matlab give permision to install a second copy on a home PC.
Beyond that, Matlab ships with both a Windows CD and a Unix/Linux CD!
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
The natives are restless. Microsoft is starting to wake up to the fact the peasants are restless, and they are starting to find alternatives.
This is a minor concession. Is it like the Czar creating the Duma to hold back the revolution?
Microsoft has not lowered prices for corporate customers. They are continuing to rely on the fact that business customers are dumb about business. The airlines soaked the business customers for years and look at where the airlines are now.
Micrsoft has tossed a few bones. Maybe their trapped and unwilling customers will not feel as ripped off now.
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
Love the title. You can interpret it any number of ways.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
For God's sake, HIRE AN EDITOR!
it's == it is
"its" is genitive, indicating ownership
This is just not hard. The editing on slashdot sucks, and makes you all look really, really stupid.
No intention to stereotype, nor is there any anti-Semitism intended, but I have yet to meet a single Jew that didn't justify the persona in the definition of the negotiation tactics described in the parent post. Could be my only interaction with Jews to any extent has been on a professional level or watching the news on the "negotiations" between Israel and Palestine - but I digress.
ymmv
so even though you are using a completely different path the end result is the same, if I read your usage correctly. You don't need a license on a 2nd machine either you are using server side resources ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
If you don't like the licensing, don't use the software. That applies to the Microsoft EULA, Shared Source, etc., as well as the GPL, LPGL, BSD, Apple, Sun Community License, etc., etc., etc.
Amazing magic tricks
Why is it SO hard for you morons to remember that "it's" is NOT possessive.
"it's" = "it is" or "it has" PERIOD!
Whenever you start to use "it's" insert "it is" into the sentence instead and if the sentence still makes sense keep it. Otherwise use "its" without the apostrophe.
If your native language isn't English you have half an excuse but you other people are FUCKING MORONS who can't remember fourth grade English!
CTRL-C CTRL-V
GPL: The Guido Public License
Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the the Scarpelli family's Guido Public License gives you more freedom with the benefit of protection for you, your family and your business. The Guido Public License applies to most of the Scarpelli Family Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Scarpelli Family Software Foundation software is covered by the Guido Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.
Accidents, fires and floods happen. The Guido Public License protects you.
We protect our rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy and distribute the software.
Failure to abide by the rules of any of the Guido Public Licenses will mean a visit from Guido Scarpelli himself.
You don't want that.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
By George, I think I hit the nail on the head! :)
Wow. Of all the items you listed, Mozilla is the only real competition to Microsoft. OpenOffice is a pig, Evolution crashes 24/7, and Linux has little to no app support.
..corporate licensees of Microsoft Office can now use that suite on a home computer as well.
Don't most folks do that now already???
Hmm, the single-user license for Office (excluding OEM) already allows the use of two simultaneous copies of Office on separate computers, one for his workstation and another for his personal-use computer (e.g. laptop).
Apparently, licensing in bulk used to remove that right, and now they're putting it back in. In effect, they're simply shifting the favor back to its original, equitable state.
At least MS is getting a clue.
Pet peeve: Profane people propagating perfunctory pedantry.
Thats right - take it home without a firewall, once the kids connect to an internet, bingo. Potential leads, contract details, userids and passwords - broadcast far and wide
Chances are such freebess will not include a virus scanner and platinum updates for same users.
Thet can take home office, but all the extra addons wont be given gratis. Intellectual property rights will also be muddied.
bad bad idea.
As if Microsoft ever came out with a well-received licensing plan?
The licence for Star Office allows you to install it on up to five computers that you use.
:-)
The licence for open office......
Have fun
Slashdot Beta should die a painful death.
Microsoft Windows Licensing 7.0
Now with a free copy of SCO UNIX!!
If I might add an opinion, it's also a sign of stupidity (which is - again something completely different to evilness). Selectively giving products away (to NPOs, home users working at companies with software assurance, large public organizations threatening to go for Linux, etc.) while charging over 500% markup for others will only make those miserable bastards feeling even more miserable about having to pay for MS products.
There are already a lot of people pissed off and Microsoft erecting a 2-class society with some paying and others getting it for free will make matters only worse, not better.
Soon, people will say "only idiots pay for MS software".
The company has admitted that it's initial approach angered a large number of customers.
These PR releases are fun.
I remember one at the time that SA was initially released and MS officials admitted that "they were at fault for not explaining the advantages of SA to their customers" who seemed not to properly understand the advantages.
Heh. Like no one understood.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Translation: "I want loads of stuff for free, and while I'm at it, I'll spout sanctimonious nonsense". You realise that you sound like the worst sorta snotty half-baked brat?
Pathetic.
Worthless.
T&K
Political language
There are four common commercial licenses:
Microsoft is just conceding corporations the right to per-seat/user licensing, which is already one of the most common product licensing arrangements in the industry.
Don't underestimate the impact to Microsoft's bottom line. Under prior interpretations, Microsoft was requiring the corporations to pay for two licenses per telecommuting employee instead of one. They were also requiring extra licenses for failover systems which aren't intended to be used unless the primary fails!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
...just to illustrate the point. Thanks.
Can't... respond... now...
T&K
[BLETCH!]
Political language
I assumed, wrongly, that you might actually have something to say, Mr. Kunt. Guess not. Hope your vomit-inducing rage goes away.
What's tangled into this whole debate is the question of how long intellectual property rights should last. Original, and for the sake of innovation and competition, they should be very limited. Otherwise, we get into a situation in which, I don't know....oh let's say...a company owns and charges royalties on a song for fifty years. The extended terms we're living with have no link to the original intent of the law. It's just a simulacra of the intent, bought into and defended by ignorant robots.
And how long should software companies hold onto everyday items, such as the Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Calendar? According to them, forever. How convenient, for them. They get to keep making money at our expense. Luckily, though, the corporate crooks of the world have ignorant robots to defend them.
The company in question here in Microsoft. Let's examine the situation. They have a ubiquitous line of products, a monopoly. They abuse their monopoly and price gouge. They eliminate competition illegally (this is a matter of public record, is it not?). So what does that mean for their softare licenses? How much respect should we extend to the bogus "Agreement" offered by an illegal operation?
Where is an American flag I can wave behind myself?
You make some good points, but one thing about maintaining open source projects is that you can always just release the code under the GPL
Excellent idea. Let me go over this again...
I'm in a particular industry, with competitors. Let's say I spend $150k developing something over a 6-12 month period (multiple developer pay and proj mgt, etc). I then 'release it' under GPL, my competitor picks it up, spends about $6k 'learning ' the code and integrating it with their business processes (again - it's my competitor) and they start to undercut my pricing. They've got the benefit of my software, my knowledge that's gone into my software, and have shelled out a small fraction of what I've had to to gain that knowledge and benefit.
Tell me again why this is a good business move?
creation science book
Do we have to go through basic grammar again? "It's" is a contraction of "it is." The correct possessive from is "its." I knew this when I was eight years old.
And I can't spell "form" :)
OOOH now I can get rid of all of those damn OEM CD's that came with the Dell's!
Corporate customers finally being able to legally use MS Office at home is a great development. Now employees can use the software they are used to using both at work and at home, instead of having to use some crappy MS Works or rip-off Openoffice.
On a "portable" computer. It was in the EULA or written on the box (I forgot which). Since the term "portable" was left ambiguous, I deemed anything I can lift as "portable". Given the size & weight of the "luggable" PC's (remember those?), I figure I can be at least as creative as Microsoft.
I was always annoyed that Microsoft quantity discount programs were seldom any better than the quantity-1 approach of buying a retail copy of MS Works just to facilitate the "upgrade" to Office. I need to see a much better deal before I feel good about Microsoft licensing. At this rate, it's only a matter of time before open source invades the desktop.
I honestly think they are setting the stage for their own destruction. The goals of market share retention are on a collision course with extracting maximum revenue from customers who are locked in. Discounting is painful in the short term, so it's more talk than action. However, failure to discount will be fatal in the long run. Therefore the answer is to talk about fixing the licensing issues, while doing as little as possible. The next logical step would be for senior management to quietly start unloading stock. Newsflash: Balmer is doing that already. Coincidence or conspiracy? You decide.
/sarcasm Now I get to support home users office crashes plus keep up with "Software Agression err Advantage." for home users too! Thanks M$! Can we install the Office version for OSX for home users with Mac's for free as well?
That's what consultants are for. I'm biased; I'll say that up front, because that's what I do for a living.
A current largish client of mine is in the businesss of selling things on the web. They looked at commercial offerings combining CMS and storefront functionality (there are a lot of them), and ran screaming to my company, which is providing them a custom built package based on OS tools that will cost them less than 25% of what the commercial tools would have.
The problem with most of the commercial packages is that you still have to customize them, and it isn't much easier, and certainly not cheaper.
OS does have "best of breed" components for building things. Companies that fear OS consultants and run to an integrator or a vendor professional services group have an irrational view of software development that costs them a lot of money. I _know_ this for a fact - I've been on the other side of the divide, on both sides of large integration/customization projects.
One big problem that profesional service teams of many (certainly not all) commercial vendors have is the same thing they claim as a value add - being part of the same company as the product development team. Find a bug? Wait for the next release, I threw it in the issue tracker. Need a feature? I'll bring it up with the product manager, we'll get back to you. If I find a bug in Postgres, I fix it, submit a patch and move on with the project. If the PG team doesn't integrate my patch or has more pressing things to do, my client still gets what they need.
To be fair, there are a lot of "consultants" out there that give Open Source a bad name. A consultant should be just that - a neutral third party that helps you with your business. We consider ourselves 1/3 business consultants, 1/3 development house, and 1/3 fixers. Essentially, what a good lawyer does (they actually are out there, but rare) - a good consultant is the client's advocate, and that's much more than a technical role.
That said, back to the topic, the general state of commercial software is not so different from the state of OS. They differ widely in places, and commercial software has an edge in vertical and specialty markets. Generally speaking, if COTS software doesn't do it for your company, OS has the building blocks for you to build it, and usually more cheaply and more quickly than a commercial offering, because you're only paying for the subset of the development you need for your business, and not a (usually massive) fee for the building blocks as well.
Anyway, this is all very off-topic.
-j, stepping off the soap box (should that be milk crate these days?)
I forget what 8 was for.
I'm not parent poster, but go the fuck away anyway. The guy never said he was writing comedy material, and it's still better than anything you've brought up.
It's frighteningly Orwrllian, like from 1984. Remember how the Ministry of War was Called the Ministry of Peace, disinformation was called Ministry of Truth (I think). So software "screwing you royally" is called Software Assurance. Not much different, eh?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Hasnt Corel let professional users install their software on home machines as well for years?
"I assumed, wrongly, that you might actually have something to say, Mr. Kunt. Guess not. Hope your vomit-inducing rage goes away..."
I assumed wrongly that you were just trolling, but I see that you ain't. [wipes mouth with back of hand]
"...What's tangled into this whole debate is the question of how long intellectual property rights should last. Original, and for the sake of innovation and competition, they should be very limited. Otherwise, we get into a situation in which, I don't know....oh let's say...a company owns and charges royalties on a song for fifty years. The extended terms we're living with have no link to the original intent of the law. It's just a simulacra of the intent, bought into and defended by ignorant robots..."
I take your point, especially with respect to the onset of perpetual copright for songs and music of the 20th/21st century, but I don't necessarily see a correspondence between popular entertainment and software. Songs don't require support, bug-fixes, documentation, etc. There is never going to be any pressing need for "Hit Me Baby One More time v2.0a-rc".
"...And how long should software companies hold onto everyday items, such as the Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Calendar? According to them, forever. How convenient, for them. They get to keep making money at our expense. Luckily, though, the corporate crooks of the world have ignorant robots to defend them..."
Who's holding onto these staples of the desktop environment? There are competing versions of all of the above for sale or download. I don't have a problem with any company vigorously defending their rights w.r.t. their particular implementation of a wordprocessor or a text editor.
"...The company in question here in Microsoft. Let's examine the situation. They have a ubiquitous line of products, a monopoly. They abuse their monopoly and price gouge. They eliminate competition illegally (this is a matter of public record, is it not?). So what does that mean for their softare licenses? How much respect should we extend to the bogus "Agreement" offered by an illegal operation?..."
What are you suggesting? MS has no IP or commercial rights invested in any of its products, hence copyright infringment of their wares is acceptable? Palladium ahoy!
T&K
Political language
This has been a part of the Microsoft Select program for a long while, i'm not sure if you was a standard part of the program or an option.
Later,
Phil
Doesn't MS own enough stake (or just handed over cash) in CNet to consider CNet a propaganda machine for MS? Can anyone verify or deny this info?
If so, I'd take any news from CNet regarding MS with a grain of salt, it might as well say "written by Bill Gates" at the bottom of the article...
One of my responsiblities is software librarian. I have already had requests for employees to have Office installed at home. Now I will have to support employees home computers because that can't run office or are having problems.
I don't get paid enough to deal with this crap.
Losers whine about doing their best
Winners go home and f*ck the prom queen!
MS-Tweaks I and MS-Tweaks II?
Didn't they receive licensing plans?
You can if you freeze it!
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
"Who's holding onto these staples of the desktop environment? There are competing versions of all of the above for sale or download. I don't have a problem with any company vigorously defending their rights w.r.t. their particular implementation of a wordprocessor or a text editor."
Using anything other than Word IMO is somewhat pointless because of Word's dominance. A standard format would be nice, or even the ability for competitors to write to Word format. Seems easy enough. But we don't have a standard, because corporations are greedy. People defend industry for some damned reason, sighting that thing they see in the corner of their eyes that they think is freedom of choice. You have NO CHOICE! You're being swindled. But...
"I take your point, especially with respect to the onset of perpetual copright for songs and music of the 20th/21st century, but I don't necessarily see a correspondence between popular entertainment and software. Songs don't require support, bug-fixes, documentation, etc. There is never going to be any pressing need for "Hit Me Baby One More time v2.0a-rc"."
That's a good point.
But I would argue that the pressing need for the next version of most software packages is more sales, not more functionality. Not many people use Office 98, because they've had to upgrade. There's really no choice in the matter. And it is not cheap.
"What are you suggesting? MS has no IP or commercial rights invested in any of its products, hence copyright infringment of their wares is acceptable? Palladium ahoy!"
We Americans are being sold out by the government and ourselves. What happened to the Microsoft case? Why is intellectual property law up for sale by our representatives? Why does noone seem to represent us? For whatever reason, they aren't. I am to a degree suggesting that people should ignore the law. If one can't afford a popular and necessary software title, but it's a matter of survival, then he should do it illegally. Productivity, creativity, and use are good, and they're the sides on which we should err.
... opiate of the masses. 'nuff said.
The obvious course of action for anyone who needed to edit Microsoft's office suite's documents at home was to download a copy of OpenOffice and use that.
People in small firms who do that and find it works well are likely to add a copy of OO to their work network when they next need an extra office suite seat, rahter than buying a further copy of MS' office suite. And then when MS upgrade time comes, what would anyone predict happens?
I'd assume that sufficient people have caught on to that, together with MS getting some visibility in their attacks on people who copy their software without their permission, that the sales of of MS' office suite that MS were hoping to produce by withdrawing their previous agreement that business users can install at home as well, had gone negative.
What fun!
I watched alright...I watched in horror as it slowly crawled up across the screen and placed it's elf .....!!!!
LOOK!! Its doing it again!!! That damned apos-trophy climbed up the screen and sat right down where I KNOW it doe's'n't belong..and....oh god....make it's top!!!!!