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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
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.
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.
If instead of sending in the cops to raid him they had send him a polite letter explaining where there might be a problem it probably would have been very different. But they make the licences so crazy that you almost can't help violate them in one way or another if you have a lot of computers.
From the interview it sounds like they were trying to play by the rules, ok maybe their audits where not as good as they should be, but lets be honest most folks have better things to do then audit software once a month.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
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.
Did you actually read the whole article? His version of the facts is that the BSA complained (among other things, maybe) about unused software that had not been properly deleted from some hard drives when after moving a PC from a department to another. In total, he had something like 8 percent of non-licensed software. And anyway, he said that his main problem was not the about paying for the software, but in the way the BSA raided his company.
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.
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.
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.
That's absolutely correct.
I have a business myself and I tell all my staff "don't use unlicenced software" and they do exactly as I say. And I say, "If you buy software, remember to put the licence and CD-ROM in the software cupboard", and that's what everyone does. And I say "if you buy a computer or recieve a second hand computer, make sure you have all the licences". And do you know, all my staff do that too. Dealing with staff is easy. You just tell them what to do, and they always do it, to the letter, and never forget, and everything is always neat and tidy and wonderfully efficient.
[/end of sarcasm]
I trust you don't actually run your own business with lots of staff?
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
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.
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...
I found his answer to the question (paraphrased) "did you find everything you needed from open source?" was a good point; that most OSS is developer-centric. Check out SourceForge for the number of PHP content management systems, for example. Yikes, what's an OSS advocate to do...
On the other hand, where I work (UK public sector) is desperately short of money, composed of lots of small organisations who can hire one or two developers each at most, and yet very tight-knit - there are partnerships going on all the time. One of the things we're after is records management - document management on stereoids, if you like. Unfortunately, there's no OSS equivalent for me to recommend to others in the partnership.
Are content management systems all that exciting to code? I dunno (and I've written one)..but I think the OSS world needs to branch out into other markets beyond the "let's fork another HTTP server and put Linux on an iPod" type of project - surely the only way to reduce Microsoft's ubiquity is to be a ubiquitous alternative yourself? How about some OSS records management, workflow, online forms, asset management, planning applications, licensing apps?
PS: If anyone knows of such OSS projects, advice gratefully accepted... :-)
"This is why men never share their feelings; because women always remember." -Just Shoot Me.
"[...]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."
just from my perspective working in a viusalFX studio...all the real technical apps. are moving over to Linux. Check out CinePaint, it is a much better "paint" type program photoshop supporting high bit depths etc. Shake, Maya, XSI they all run on Linux (better on linux infact). While I do agree with you somewhat i think alot of the more common desktop design apps are going to be taken care of ala WINE. it seems that Linux is really starting to creep into the design/FX community pretty quickly.
God is real, unless declared integer.
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".
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".
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.
Oh, see we in America have this thing called "freedom". It lets the government give powers to non-government entities like the BSA, RIAA, MPAA, etc. As the EU picks up speed, you should be experiencing such "freedom" soon, too. - Jasen.
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.