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Ernie Ball - Model For Open-Source Transition?
fr0z writes "
Ernie Ball is a company that makes guitar strings. After being raided by the BSA in 2000 without warning and fined $100,000 for a few unlicensed copies of software, CEO Sterling Ball vowed not to give another cent to Microsoft and within 6 months, according to CNET News, had the whole company switched to Red Hat Linux, OpenOffice.org, Mozilla, and other free software."
...it might just be me, but is that a Windows 2003 Server ad that appears on the page along with Ernie Ball's story?
Maybe the BSA should carry out more raids and "convert" more people to Linux!
After being raided by the BSA in 2000
Hey, I knew we went overboard with the Patriot act, but when did the BSA (Boyscouts of America) start doing raids?!?
Just another day in Paradise
...I'd like to know what Accounting software they use... gnuCash?
:-D
Anyways - my axe wil be enjoying openSource crafted strings from now
[qoute]
"I said, 'I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses,'" recalled Ball, who recently addressed the LinuxWorld trade show. "We won't do business with someone who treats us poorly."
[/quote]
if you don't agree with the licensing, don't use illegal copies. it's very nice etc that they switched the whole thing to RH, but come on, if you use commercial software you should pay for it.
Yep - hauling out my piano and dumping it. It's time to learn to play guitar.
I wanna support these guys and I'd feel pretty silly just buying strings.
Alan.
but they were illegally using software. Still, there is a lesson to learn from this if your company uses non-Free software.
2. Switch to Linux et al.
3. Profit.
Other companies have likely done similar but it's the publicity that counts more than anything - an actual success story with Linux from a company with clout should turn a few heards in the direction of open source.
i don't agree with M$/BSA methods. but legally, they have the right, and there's not a real excuse to not follow the terms and conditions of a license if you are running a professional business.
no matter how honest and fair this family business of his might be...
now you can mod me to hell, i know i don't have a popular opinion
I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses
I bet Abacus Inc is pretty pissed at the Red Hat right now. That's one big contract to miss out on.
If is true that if you have to pay the legal expenses of the BSA while they prosecute you, then it is time for a flood of feeble "In Soviet America" jokes. Perhaps someone who is a lawyer could explain the situation?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
It's hard to keep up with licenses at a small company. I'd venture to say most companies with 50 computers or less have at most one IT person to handle everything. A company with 150-200 clients and a few servers might have 2-3 IT people if they are lucky.
The only reasonable way such a company can ensure full licenses is to pay MS's outrageous "protection money". I forget what they call it, something like "software assurance". When the BSA comes in, you are guilty until proven innocent. Most companies roll over.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Just to get the story _really_ straight:
He wasn't objecting to being nonconformant, license-wise. He is objecting to the manner in which he was treated as a customer. He objected to the very heavy-handed way they treated it, and to the way they decided to hang him out publicly as an example. He also objects to the steep fines imposed (without any court sanction), and the way the law in practice makes it impossible for smaller businesses to contest the BSA assertions in court.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
We have a number of medium sized enterprises *fully* migrated to Open Source software, and running *way* better on it.
Our best known (in the UK at least) case study is here.
In fact the Group consider Open Source to not merely be a 'substitute' for Microsoft Software, but to have delivered far more real, measurable business benefit than they ever received as a Microsoft Shop.
I am glad Ernie Ball are receiving this great press for their *complete* migration, but they are by no means the first (or the last!) decent-sized enterprise to have done this.
Do not taunt Happy Ernie Bal...er.. wait, wrong ball.
Mr. Ball sounds like a practical businessman, he sounds passionate and as if he enjoys what he does. I wonder if he would be receptive to a business proposition in which he would be featured in commercial advertisements and perhaps provide more precise figures about what it costs him (as he said that analysts are too pessimistic).
As more people like Mr. Ball speak out, the open source community is gaining more people who understand business and can convince other businesses. This man understands that free software can still cost money, and he has the personal experience and business acumen to be able to boil things down to the most important, concise points. He mentiones several important points in his interview, and probably has tons more knowledge that would be useful to making open source a better business solution, and making open source profitable.
It might not be such a bad idea for companies and individuals who are considering funding open source projects to listen to such people when considering project goals. And it would not be so difficult for free software organizations to initiate commerical projects including creating advertisements and articles based on solid, no-nonsense business cases for open source featuring real-world successes like Ernie Ball.
Most businesses being small businesses or starting out as small businesses' aren't that savvy about IP law. Or the DCMA. In the end the market will react either by the software vendors backing off, the law changing, or people doing what this guy did and choosing alternatives.
Show me proof of ownership for your toilet. Bet you can't!
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Probably of zero interest to most of the /. crowd, but they make some very funky bass strings as well.
Ernie Ball Extra Slinkies are great for playing slap bass / funk in general, very "twangie" sound.
I think the point the fact he got raided and sued. If they had sent his company a polite letter stating that they believed he was in violation of some licenes, please do an audit and check, etc etc then he would have probably complied and everyone (supposedly) is happy.
But no, they wanted to make an example of him and so they did. Its just now its an example of how to get away from that world.
J.
[Hope is the cruellest curse]
This is a case of breaking someone for not following the letter of the contract even though he followed the spirit of the contract and was a good customer all in all. The illegal installations were not used and had the company known about them, no licenses would have been bought -- the installations would simply have been deleted. The BSA-represented companies lost precisely nothing due to this negligence.
In the article he says that fewer than 8% of the copies in his business were unlicensed, accidentally leftover when they handed computers down with extraneous applications still on them. They're a guitar string company. They were not, on the whole, a piracy-based criminal organization by any stretch of the imagination but they were treated like one by the BSA. And now they are free from that ever happening again.
He got caught because in the process of running a business, he decided not to devote absolutely ridiculuous amounts of time to wiping the harddrives of unused PCs.
And before you accuse the guy of whining, note that he paid his fine, in addition to the presumably hundreds of thousands of legitimate licensing fees that he'd already paid to BSA members.
Now he's doing precisely what a smart businessman should do: recognize that the cost of policing for such tiny violations (and the potential fines that can result) is much higher than the software is worth. He's taking his business elsewhere. And good for him.
No, they don't gloss over it. He specifically states that
a) They weren't using it (but it was unintentionally left installed on the wrong machines.)
and
b) He was willing to make restitution, providing MS had offered him a voluntary audit and a fair price on the 5 machines that were infringing.
He washed his hands of MS because they wanted to make an example out of him. That's a bad way to treat a customer, and he bailed on them.
I don't know for sure, however don't most Oracle Applications run on Redhat Linux?
I'd imagine the accounting department could be an Oracle shop.
He only talked about removing Microsoft....
h
But I've got to tell you, I couldn't have built my business without Microsoft, so I thank them. Now that I'm not so bitter, I'm glad I'm in the position I'm in. They made that possible, and I thank them.
I'll take that to mean that when he needed the software that Open Source wasn't around yet. But I wonder if we'll see that quote used by Microsoft anyway.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
Listen to him guys, he's a CEO.
Now I'm going to take those Fenders off, thay don't twang like they used to, and get me some Ernie Balls.
No but, yeah but, no but...
The point is that he wasn't trying to steal.
They were not intending to defraud, just poor computer administration led to some accidental license violations.
The offensive part is they didn't give an opportunity to clean up the mess when it was pointed out by deleting the unused software, or buying the software. They didn't work with him to develop a system to track this, or even give a nice little FAQ to help him out.
Instead of working with their customer, they settled for $100,000, for 6 infringing computers? $17k per computer in fines and penalties. That's ridiculous, all the software is a fraction of that cost.
When a person makes a mistake, it is reasonable to point it out and suggest that more care should be taken to avoid this in the future. Expecting them to pay for any damage they caused is also reasonable.
Please. Every company I have ever worked in is "out of compliance" by some amount. I am talking big firms, small firms and everything in between.
The fact is, if you read the article, that he was most upset by how he was treated by the BSA and Microfoft. Which I am guessing you have never had the pleasure of sitting through, either.
Freedom Is Universal
Linux-Universe
[...] the developers need to start writing the real-world applications people need to run a business...engineering, art and design tools, that kind of stuff...They're all trying to build servers that already exist and do a whole bunch of stuff that's already out there...I think there's a lot of room to not just create an alternative to Microsoft but really take the next step and do something new.
This is the argument I always get into when my friends ask me why I don't use Linux or BSD or whatever. There is not enough non-server software out there. GIMP is pretty much the only raster graphics package out there, Win32 has Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Corel Photo Paint, Fireworks, Painter, etc. I can chose between Illustrator, Freehand and Corel Draw for vector graphics. Combustion, Avid, Premiere, After Effects, etc. It's all good and fine that I can write a letter, do my taxes and the like on a *nix machine, but I need to actually work now and then and the applications *still* aren't there.
RTFA. Conducting armed raids with the assistance of federal mercenaries^Wmarshals is SOP for the BSA.
- fader
I have had to take a heavy hand to the machines and employees here a few times in recent past due to unlicensed software usage. A couple people took it upon themselves to install copies of Autocad on their machines to 'improve their efficeincy'. We do have a couple AC licenses, but not for these machines. One person was suspended the other just given a warning.
As a geek, Ernie's story is pretty cool, and I am happy to say I support the company financially as well by buying their strings.
tinfoilmedia
Hey, hey! Whats wrong with the free software song!?
Garrottes for woodchucks.
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Well, now I'm *definitely* buying a brand new Ernie Ball/Music Man StingRay!
I currently own one 2002 StingRay 4 Unlined Fretless 3EQ in Transparent Gold with Matching Headstock that I bought off of eBay and one 1995 StingRay 4 Unlined Fretless 3EQ in SunBurst that I bought new from an authorized dealer.
I've been lusting after a StingRay 4 Fretted 3EQ in Transparent Red with Matching Headstock and Black Pearloid pickguard with Rosewood fingerboard...
Ernie Ball is a great company that makes products of exceptional quality and offers fantastic customer service (at least, that's my experience with EB/MM).
Glad to see that somebody out there is giving those bastards what they deserve. Fsck MS's strong-arm monopoly tactics!
Mod parent up. This is exactly what I was thinking when I read the article, and the voices have been getting louder in my head for the past 8 months since I tried the ardour beta.
:-)
I work for one of the UC schools. The people i deal with here all know about open source. the CSE guys use it because it is familiar and can do all the basic things.
the creative people DON'T, partly because the gui is not standardized (yeah, yeah) but mostly because the apps just aren't pro quality. GIMP is not photoshop. you can't color match using printing tools. theres no substitute for adobe illustrator. what about after effects, something that is such a hog on memory that it would benefit from being shoved into a beowulf cluster?
I think that a lot of the programmers on this board get caught up in certain types of apps. Just because you don't use something like Finale or cakewalk, or Final Cut Pro yourself does not mean that these apps aren't something people need.
And yes, I know that you need to do it yourself. Who empowers the musicians to do it when most of them can barely check email? what about video editors who need to spend all their time making sure that the latest coke ad gets in your head?
ahh, I am probably just blowing smoke out my rear, but I like sparking discussion and flamewars
Shouldn't all the closed-source vs open-source TCO comparisons include fines like this in the TCO for closed software? It's extremely hard for companies to ensure complete licence compliance, which combined with the difficulty of fighting the BSA makes this something that could happen to any company.
Isn't it standard practice to include potential scenarios like this in business plans, weighted with the probability of it occuring?
Yeah, there are some things that are tough to find, like payroll software. We found something, and it works well. But the developers need to start writing the real-world applications people need to run a business...engineering, art and design tools, that kind of stuff...They're all trying to build servers that already exist and do a whole bunch of stuff that's already out there...I think there's a lot of room to not just create an alternative to Microsoft but really take the next step and do something new.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
He didn't do enough research, if he thinks Apple is partially owned by Microsoft. Microsoft bought $150 million worth of non-voting shares of Apple as part of a lawsuit settlement. Microsoft has since sold those shares.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Just about everything, have you listened to it?
Home Automation & Linux -- now I know I'm a geek
A note for Sterling:
Dear Mr. Ball, I read the recent article posted on Slashdot and CNET about your transition to Linux after being harassed by the BSA. As a musician, Linux user, and businessman, I was very pleased to read about it. I'm very happy that you've had a good experience with the transition to Linux and wholeheartedly agree with you that the FUD campaign about TCO is a complete farse. Thank you so much for speaking out in favor of Linux and Free Software. Your glowing testimonial will go far in opening peoples' eyes to the benefits of Linux and also toward dispelling the fears surrounding the transitions to Free Software.
Sincerely
Eric Hidle
ehidle@ie-ap.org
RTFA. This is a new interview with Sterling Ball, published yesterday. It's nice to see a status report, including the fact that the company is ditching its SCO systems because of the lawsuit.
I wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing more switches from proprietary to oss in the future.
Even if in the IT biz we've accustomed to accepting very very ugly tactics if they're even remotely legally justifiable, it doesn't mean all businesses will want to have anything to do with corporations that employ such if there are alternatives.
Sometimes I wonder when stuff like 'the customer is always right' and such disappeared from the software industry. Well, not all of it. Shops doing custom stuff usually still treat their clients with some respect, at least way better than the large ones with a forcefed product portfolio do. But overall the software biz is starting to resemble some sort of drug pushing operation:
"you know you need our product",
"oh, that was yesterdays price, it's just doubled",
"should you consider not conforming, you can expect a visit from a couple of our friends".
So if a shoplifter is caught stealing a bottle of whiskey, or a multipack of cigarettes, or a pack of nappies after shopping there without incident for a period, should he/she be treated leniantly?
Good grief, settle down. That's not a good analogy for this case. In this case, it's as if your kid tries to carry a pack of gum out of the store along with your $100 of groceries you just bought, and they fine you $5000 and put your picture up in the lobby to make an example out of you and your beligerent child.
There didn't appear to be any intent to pirate in the Ball case, but the BSA was looking for an example for cheap press. They got the press they deserved.
On your way to the chair, which of the following are you going to consider the more legitimate response?
- Information wants to be free! Fight the RIAA!
- The law's the law. I had MP3s on my machine, I deserve to die. It's perfectly simple keep MP3s off of my computers, and I didn't take the necessary precautions, as a responsible business owner, to ensure my employees stayed in full compliance of the law by regularly writing, installing, and running scripts to delete
.MP3 files and cutting off the hands of those employees caught with Kazaa Lite installed on their machines.
- Ok, ok, I broke the law, but don't you think this is just a little bit extreme? I'm perfectly prepared to pay restitution under normal circumstances, but frankly, the RIAA and Congress suck for putting into place these laws and I'm not leaving a penny to Mary Bono in my will.
The answer is probably (3). Heaven help us if it's (1) or (2). My understanding is that Ernie's worldview is also of (3). While we may not be talking about consequences as extreme as the above, we're still talking about a case where the punishment was, in Ernie's opinion, way out of proportion to the crime.It's perfectly legitimate for him to consider that something to complain about. It's also perfectly legitimate for the Slashdot editors to agree with him, because a six digit penalty for an almost certainly accidental three or four digit dollar figure piracy crime does seem just a tad... over the top.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I understand what you are saying.
However, it is also a reality of doing business that you treat your customers with some care even when they are in the wrong, particularily when the problem is due to inattention or negligence, rather than willful infringement. Thjat is, you do so if you want to keep them as customers.
To take a better example: your company sells boxes of widgets to another company periodically. One time it turns out the payment hasn't arrived in time - in fact, it's rather late. Do you:
a) call/send a polite letter to your contact wondering what has happened;
b) have the employee handling this customer visit in person, both to affirm the business relationship, and incidentally remark on the unfortunate delay on the latest payment; or
c) sue them for the full amount, interest due and damages, and hang them out in the trade press as criminal assholes.
If you want to continue selling widgets to them, c is not an option - except if they are so small customers they are irrelevant, or you're so confident on you being irreplaceabe that they will continue buying from you no matter what you do.
If you feel the last approach is fine, I wish you good luck if you would ever decide to go into business.
In any case, the real meat of this piece is not that they became disgruntled, but that Linux does work fine as an alternative for a business of their size.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Where did the Boy Scouts of America even get the right to do this crap to companies...
We never had that much fun in Boy Scouts... =P
Reality is that no matter how hard you audit your machines, how anal you are, there's always going to be something (at least one program) out there that sneaks through and isn't licensed right. Usually, the unlicensed stuff gets on the network in one of a couple ways...
1) Somebody brought it in from home for business.
2) Somebody brought it in from home for fun.
3) Somebody downloaded it.
4) We just missed one.
(Unfortunately, we use WinBlows so 1-3 are problems for us.)
While I certainly agree that commercial software must be paid for, the penalty for a mistake should be proportional... Not a "revenue shot in the arm" for the vendor if you make a simple accounting mistake.
Now, certainly, systematic copying should be punished, sure. But the Ernie Ball corporation was NOT an example of this. A vast majority of their software was legally purchased, but they paid a $100,000 fine anyway. The fine is beyond disproportionate to the point of absurdity in comparison to their offense.
I think Stuart Ball's decision to change his company to RH and stick it up Microsoft's ass was the absolute right one. Microsoft doesn't have a god-given right to $600,000 per year from my company, nor any company, and the attitude of "$100,000 fine for ALL licensing mistakes!" is just flat out extortion.
(And before you flame me that I need to go to a different back office solution so I can secure my desktops: I KNOW. But I don't have the authority to force it through.)
$100,000? Bah! Everybody should do what Stuart Ball did in a show of empathetic outrage. Do you realize we spend around $200,000 per year in employees (after adding in insurance, taxes, etc) JUST TO COMPLY WITH OUR COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE LICENSES? That's three full-time employees. Not to mention the SUPER expensive software system that costs (ballpark) another $8k per year in "maintenance fees" to keep it all straight.
Posted anonymously because I talk about details. Sorry.
And they dumped SCO a while back too according to Netcraft.
/.'ers can love or what? ;)
Man, is the a company
Wouldn't going to the cafeteria or out on the balcony for a 10 minute talk, laugh, cup of coffee or a smoke help someone relax better than playing Minesweeper or browsing the Web? It would helps the body and the mind better than keeping on crouching in front of the computer. I've seen a company once where they had a lounge room complete with toy basketball sponge ball and hoop. As long as people remind to not abuse the privilege it works better than anything they could've done on their PC to "relax".
The terrible thing is that SCO will now send in the BSA.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
Err.. first of all I can run OOo 1.01 on my P2-350 (256mb RAM). Slow to start, fine after that.
You do know that Microsoft Office loads part of itself into RAM when Windows starts, right? (AFAIK)
This gives faster "load" times..
Thunderbird is an e-mail client.. not a front-end.. You mean Firebird? it's a whole new browser with a differrent rendering engine.
The reason you can't get OOo to work nicely in 128MB ram is because KDE or GNOME is eating a lot of that with eye-candy.. try with IceWM and be amazed.
You haven't explained why you need a new hard drive for OpenOffice, and how it costs $500 to throw in another 128mb RAM into the computers ($150 000 / 300 = $500 per computer). RAM isn't very expensive now.. I can get 128mb SD-133 (I assume that is what is in that generation of computers) for ~CDN$45.. cheaper when on sale. Therefore, I estimate USD$9000, not USD$150 000.
You, sir, are full of shit.
This is what I keep thinking when Slashdotters criticize the BSA's heavy-handed methods or Microsoft's draconian EULAs... that's all self-inflicted! All those users are doing it to themselves. I say let the proprietary software world go on like this; they are slowly running out of steam anyway. And it all just serves to illustrate what you get yourself into when you choose to run monopolyware. Anyone who wants to avoid this has plenty of alternatives open to them.
If I have read the Article correctly the BSA was accompanied by armed marshals and therefore must have had a search warrant for the offices of Ernie Ball. What I do not understand is why the BSA even could get such warrants.
In Germany where I live only the district attorney can issue such warrants and only the police or federal agencies may search buildings using that warrant. The person(s) who made the allegations may not even be present during the search.
And since shrink-wrap licences are (still) illegal in germany the BSA would not even get the district attorney to issue such a warrant since only common contractual law applies to software purchases.
So they can go to my office but I don't have to let them in.
Giving some pressure group federal powers seems a bit odd to me.
Us business owners need BUSINESS applications. We don't need servers. We don't needs cutesy tools. We need some business apps. If someone wanted to sell me an OSS package, all ready to go, I'd look at it. As is, I'd have to cobble it together myself, and I just don't have the time. Software is just another tool, and nobody who's in business has time or money to dick around with software. If someone came to me and said, "we can set up your POS workstations for you at $1000 each, I'd be all over it. I don't want to have to hunt around for an OS, figure out how to configure the goddamned thing, then find some POS software, then figure out how to install it, configure it, compile it, whatever.
Anyone see the irony that he pretty well recovered the amount of the fine in one hit when he went open source? I guess he must be well ahead by now.
I realize this may be slightly off-topic, but could someone from /. get that IT department to possibly field a few questions? Such as how they planned & executed the move, the size of the installed base, etc...I'd really like to see how they got that move made so fast.
There are plenty of sound rational reasons to use open source software. Arn't these anti-microsoft rants simply preaching to already converted hot heads?
The sound reasons are what should ultimately guide you.
Your use of terms like "rants" and "hot heads" got my attention. Communities tend to naturally form where people feel strongly about something.
There seems to be a notion on slashdot that having any passion about your software is somehow a bad thing. Nobody seems to think there is anything wrong with having strong feelings about other political issues. People proudly line up and declare a party. The lines are clearly drawn.
I'll admit it. I feel strongly about open source. I'm biased. I try not to let it affect my evaluating and decision making. In my experience, the people (usually Microsoft zealots) who claim to be un-biased, are the most biased people of all. (But not just on the Microsoft side either.) I'll say it again, people who claim to be unbiased, are sometimes the most biased.
Finally, for those who would suggest that slashdot weenies are the only ones who are fanatical about their software, I only have this to say....
developers, developers, Developers, Developers, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!, DEVELOPERS!!
and...
Whooooo! Give it up for me! I have only four words to say: I LOVE THIS COMPANY!
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
How does the BSA know you have some of their member's software, and thus *might* be breaking license and are a good target for a raid?
Either you've registered your software and the software vendor shared the list with the BSA, or you were stupid enough to call up the BSA after seeing one of their ads and asking for assistance with license compliance auditing.
The TRUE lesson to be learned from the BSA is pirate ALL software published by BSA members... then there is no record of your company in their databases. Just make sure you don't ever email them from Outlook or via an Exchange server unless you can 'correct' the headers appropriately.
Sorry, but it's (Word or Excel 97/2000/XP incompatibilities) a daily event here, in a major consulting engineering company that works with your big-league manucturers and oil companies. PowerPoint isn't a big deal but Word and Excel (and Access and Project) are real problems. We receive and produce hundreds of documents a week using the Microsoft office suite and every day at least one produced by one version isn't readable in another version. Hell, I've used OpenOffice to get access to Word and Excel XP documents that Word or Excel 2000 couldn't open. I've done the same thing to cross-export Word97 docs to WordXP. And a lot of the time I use the open source PDFWriter to create a PDF from OOWrite so that everyone in the office can read it. As far as I'm concerned that's wasted time when I could be improving/expanding the IT infrastructure. Microsoft just doesn't play fair cricket and I'm tired of it. I just wish the IT chief (my boss) would get her head out of the sand.
- I'm not making calls to Red Hat; I don't need to. I think that's propaganda...What about the cost of dealing with a virus? We don't have 'em. How about when we do have a problem, you don't have to send some guy to a corner of the building to find out what's going on--he never leaves his desk, because everything's server-based. There's no doubt that what I'm doing is cheaper to operate. The analyst guys can say whatever they want.
Hurrah! Someone finally cut through all the bullshit, and basically said it straight. Take that you buzzword speaking analyst! Begone back to the hellish dimension that spawned you!Well, that's it for me then - I'm going to buy Ernie Ball strings from now on. Actually, all strings seem pretty much the same to me, what with massive distortion and high volumes, so why not support people who have er.. Balls? (sorry)
A disgruntled employee or contractor can easily rat your company out to BSA.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
We are getting paid to improve free software developer tools, server software, productivity tools, and hardware support, so that is what we do.
If you want us to write accounting software, pay us to do so. It is not something we are going to do for fun.
yes, however a toddler with no clue can get round it ;-)
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
I used Rotosound for mnany years then switched to Ernie Ball about 12 years ago. I like a real bright tone so I change them often. I go through lots of sets of 4 and 5 string regular slinky bass. I've never had a bad string from Ernie Ball. I can't say the same of Rotosound, GHS or D'Addario. Reading a story like this only strenghtens my loyalty.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
What if SCO reads that article, and decides to make him the first "end user" sued?:-jmw
The TRUE lesson to be learned from the BSA is pirate ALL software published by BSA members... then there is no record of your company in their databases.
:-)
I can't decide if this is +5 Insightful or +5 Funny
The company had purchased licenses for AutoCAD and M$ software, just not enough for everyone. This was pretty well-known, but like many companies, overlooked. Employees commonly burned copies of licensed software for personal use, and the license management system was...well...nonexistent.
One day the owner got a form letter from the BSA...one of the infamous "we'll give you 3 months to come into compliance, otherwise you could face an audit." This sent the owner into a flurry of making sure all software was properly licensed.
The BSA never came knocking on the door, and the owner probably spent thousands on licenses. This was probably a good thing overall, but I question the "flurry" of activity that took place at the receipt of a form letter.
I know the original article here said federal marshalls came knocking on the door, but is this common? Should one take this to mean there was a warrant? Can a warrant only be obtained when the BSA has firsthand info, such as from a disgruntled employee?
I would not have been nearly as quick to jump at the BSA letter as was the owner of the company I worked for...at least not without having consulted an attorney first.
***
Radio Shack. You've got questions...we've got blank stares(TM).
For once, this story really is about *free* software, not *open source* software. The point here is not really about how much it costs, well it just happens to cost less, but it also shows that *freedom* matters to businesses just as much as they matter to bearded MIT gurus.
...the Deck is stacked in favor of BSA:
Did you want to settle?
Never, never. That's the difference between the way an employee and an owner thinks. They attacked my family's name and came into my community and made us look bad. There was never an instance of me wanting to give in. I would have loved to have fought it. But when (the BSA) went to Congress to get their powers, part of what they got is that I automatically have to pay their legal fees from day one. That's why nobody's ever challenged them--they can't afford it. My attorney said it was going to cost our side a quarter million dollars to fight them, and since you're paying their side, too, figure at least half a million. It's not worth it. You pay the fine and get on with your business. What most people do is get terrified and pay their license and continue to pay their licenses. And they do that no matter what the license program turns into.
Question is, even if you win, do you still have to pay the BSA lawyers?
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
While it is true that some computers and users don't need internet access, i.e. critical process machines, cutting it off all together is bad for employee morale, especially when some have it and some don't. Additionally, with the workday as it is now, the employees' breaktime or lunch or sometimes even during regular hours may be the only opportunity they have to take care of personal business. And even beyond those aspects, it is actually good for employee productivity to have some diversion while at work.
If you are concerned about overuse, filter sites employees use or bytes transferred or access hours. There all sorts of ways to manage internet access without cutting it out all together.
The internet, like anything else, can be abused and overused while at work. Milly the office clerk can blow the whole day talking on the phone, regardless of whether or not you turn her internet on or off. The bottom line is that goofing off at work was occuring long before the internet was even a twinkle in some engineers eye (while daydreaming at his regular job no doubt). It's a fact of business life, and its well known.
Your post suggests that you are of the "employee is the enemy" managerial mindset. Its bad for the morale of your employees and also their productivity. If they are able to complete their assigned work in the time allotted, what is the problem?
"Please don't apply for a job where I work."
I don't think I will have a problem with that directive.
That's what you get for creating disgruntled employees...
Still, unless you have a prosecutor willing to prosecute a crime, (a *CRIME*, not a civil matter), and unless you have a magistrate willing to hear the case, there should never be a search warrant issued for anything!
I hear about "BSA" raids, but they are really government raids with the BSA acting as a witness for the prosecution. The prosecutor is never named in these articles. Neither is the judge who signed the order.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Policing existing software isn't too bad. New licenses get either stuck in a master drawer, or better with the computer they are used on so you don't have to do a count.
Now, if you are a larger organization, you can do network installations and then limit the amount of client connections. This usually works with a lot of licenses, because you can ensure that no more than X users are ever able to run software at a time - though it may be accessible on >1 machine (samba does this nicely, BTW).
However, here is where the shit hits the fan: users. Users that have a program at home, and want to use it at work. Users who know anti-piracy rules, but seem to think that "installing this little program" isn't a problem. So, here, we freeze all our computers so that on reboot they revert to a previous state. Only those with a password (aka the techs) can install software.
And of course, we have to ensure that kazaa, etc are blocked in the firewall, etc etc. Again, the users. Oh, and as a note, I work in schools, and the users I speak of are more-often-than-not staff, not students. It's a bit sad really...
So what did swearing off Microsoft entail? We looked at all the alternatives. We looked at Apple, but that's owned in part by Microsoft. (Editor's note: Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple in 1997.)
Somewhere, a man wearing a black turtleneck is going, "Doh!"
That's a logo they used to put on t-shirts they gave away to retailers.
As a professional musician I've decided that I'll purchase their strings exclusively. Bless their heads for making the right decision for the right reasons !
My biggest reservation about open and free software is that it's not obvious how I would make a living if the whole world switched. Programming is my most marketable skill* and has kept me employed for many years. I know Stallman says that we could make money supporting free software and filling in the holes, but I've always been skeptical of the demand. Ernie Ball seems to support my concern.
* My other career option is writing. That doesn't pay the bills, and, if we totally kill rather than fix copyright laws, it'll never pay.
Yeah, I know you may not care but I do. This was one of the primary motivators for our school to move to Open/StarOffice.
As an international school, we never know what version of MS Office a student might have, foreign or domestic - but if it's foreign then you have a whole other set of issues.
Sometimes that Korean doc will open in an American version of Word and print in the lab, other times, it locks up Word and/or the print driver.
Since we switched to Open/StarOffice, this isn't even an issue anymore. Each student gets a copy when she arrives here, and we've never had a problem with language support, printing, or lock ups (well, since 1.0.1 that is!)
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Usally, what happens is somebody you fired gets pissed off and calls the BSA. You then lose several man-weeks of productivity bending over for the BSA auditors, whether you're guilty or not. I'm not sure what happens if you tell the BSA auditors to get the hell off your property -- do they come back with machine guns? They're a private corporation -- what right do they have to force you to do anything?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
More specifically, the disgruntled employee was responsible for making sure they were compliant with their licenses. Not only did the employee turn them in, he could have actually been responsible for the complaints that were filed.