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Foundstone Shoe On Other Foot
Cimmer writes "One of the premier hack shops (to pun or not to pun) gets busted for unethically ethically hacking.
After filing a lawsuit against former employee JD Glaser for supposedly jacking company source code, Foundstone gets nailed for massive internal software piracy. Tonight's entree: Foot in Mouth."
Found this on Foundstone.com:
FS Responds to Fortune
To our valued customers, partners, vendors and future customers,
The current issue of Fortune Magazine contains a lengthy article about Foundstone that significantly misrepresents the way we do business, and wrongly states that Foundstone does not respect intellectual property rights. I am writing to tell you some key facts surrounding this matter, and to correct some of the irresponsible misrepresentations and factual errors in the Fortune story.
Foundstone rigorously defends its commitment to protect intellectual property rights, and the intellectual property rights of other software makers. To demonstrate Foundstone's commitment to protecting the commercial use of other software, an independent, 3rd party audit was completed on May 2 (more than a month prior to this article). According to Harvey Liss, President of VLSystems, which conducted the independent audit, "The vast majority of the software applications running on the 510 active Foundstone systems were properly licensed. Including operating systems and applications, several hundred software programs are in current use by Foundstone and over 95% were identified as properly licensed. In our experience, having performed numerous software licensing audits, this is among the higher rates for pre-audit compliance." We recognize that for a company whose very foundations are built on protecting intellectual property, anything less than complete compliance is not acceptable. Our aggressive growth is not an excuse for non-compliance. We've taken the necessary steps to identify non-compliance and have immediately applied corrective action through new policies, procedures and education.
The sources and recent timing of these defamatory statements about Foundstone to Fortune Magazine is not a coincidence. Unfortunately, Foundstone was forced to file a lawsuit against NT Objectives, Inc. because of the misappropriation of trade secrets and our unsuccessful attempts in obtaining key information and a reasonable level of cooperation from NTO. Foundstone recently received some favorable rulings in arbitration that would allow Foundstone full discovery rights to review NTO's code. From the very beginning, NTO has vehemently objected to full discovery, even though they proclaim innocence. This Fortune article is a deliberate attempt to shift focus away from the facts of the case and divert attention to rumor, innuendo, and misinformation.
Our loyal customers and market standing speak for themselves. While macro economic factors are negatively impacting other high-tech firms, Foundstone continues to buck the trend with impressive revenue growth, employee growth (Foundstoneâ(TM)s attrition rate is below the industry average), expanded product offerings, and solid financial stability. Foundstone respects the interests of our partners, vendors and associates, and will continue to deliver the highest quality products and services to meet the needs of current and new customers.
If you have any questions about this article, I invite you to call me or Stuart McClure and weâ(TM)d be happy to give you the facts.