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Microsoft to Get Tough on License Dodgers
An anonymous reader writes "PC Advisor reports that Microsoft is going to start getting tough with certain small business customers. They are going to examine their small customer license database — any discrepancies and it will call you for an audit. If you refuse it will send in the BSA and the legal heavies. "
which sells software. Yawn.
How we know is more important than what we know.
PC Advisor reports that Microsoft is going to start getting tough with certain small business customers.
They're starting with the small ones, because we all know what would happen if they started with the big ones.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Then they will give a discount on offending copies, problem solved.
Please direct all bug reports to
... we prosecuted extortion under organized crime statutes.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Cringely mentioned a while ago that people will disrupt Genuine Advantage as a first offense against Microsoft, so if they get tough with people who have legitimate copies, this will get really interesting, really fast.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Initial notice, followed by three written notices prior to any intrusive action? I'm sorry but this does not seem unreasonable nor tough to me. Anyone in the small business league at present SHOULD be adhering to any and all licensing necessary for the software they are using TO PRODUCE A PROFIT. If they aren't, well they best not try to expand beyond the term small business at any time in the future...
Flames as follows:
Ice Cream has no bones.
It plainly says in the first sentence of the article that they're going after medium sized companies, and later on that "Microsoft is targeting companies with around 250 PCs", which is a bit more than a small company would have.
Sports Crasher Monthly reports that stadiums are going to start getting tough with certain spectators. They are going to examine their person and check for a ticket -- any lack of one and they will check for proof of purchase. If you refuse, they will kick you out and call in the legal heavies.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
If they are truly "small", then their "lock in" may well be light enough to consider using Linux instead. For those things which don't have an equivalent, I'd check to see if it ran under CrossOver Linux (was CrossOver Office). Convert all MS Office documents to Open Office documents. Not difficult, unless there are a lot of VBA macros. Convert MS SQL server to MySQL or PostgreSQL. Start converting VB.NET stuff to something else (I'd say Java, but I don't want the flames [grin]).
I wonder how universal MSDN subscribers will affected by this?
-- if you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
You know its bad when they send the Boy Scouts of America after you.
It would be fun to watch some ambitious state Attorney General go after Microsoft with the RICO Act.
I know a few small businesses that abuse the MS license to make PROFIT and I think it's about time that MS does a crackdown on those businesses.
They should put more effort into cracking down those real business abusers who are making profit on the back of MS than the stupid broken WGA which annoys lots of innocent home users.
You know, not to be a troll, but I really don't see what the big deal is. Regardless of whatever ethical problems one may have with Microsoft, if a business is using illegal copies of software, that company should be sued. Buying the appropriate licenses for software is one of the costs of doing business. If I wrote a piece of software the businesses wanted and I found out that it was being rampantly pirated, I'd be wanting to stick the BSA on them, too. I don't see why Microsoft should be held to a different standard.
If you're a business using Windows, budget for it and pay, for crying out loud. If you don't want to spend the money on Microsoft products, then use open source products instead, which have become very economically attractive and corporately viable replacements. But trying to have your cake and eat it too is just stupid.
Oh, and as a side note, not that this won't start happening in the US by any stretch of the imagination, but from TFA:
This is great news.
The more Microsoft squeezes their own customers and makes it difficult and expensive to do business using Microsoft products the more these same businesses will finally open up to the idea of using open source solutions instead of consuming the spoon fed FUD from Microsoft's marketing machine.
This will result in more competition in the market where some of us can jump in and compete with the heavies in providing added value to businesses in the form of IT related services.
Go Microsoft!
Thank goodness OSS will never make a dime.
Seems a rather odd tactic, can they really persue legal action because they 'think' you 'might' not be following their licensing? Do companies really have any obligation to allow MS to examine their hardware.
The BSA is not a government entity, nor is it part of any law enforcement. If Microsoft wants to audit you, and you tell them no, can they actually force it on you? Or is this something where you have a contractual agreement with them (for your legitimate copies of Windows) that allows them to audit you whenever they feel like it? If so, wouldn't this simply encourage people who pirate a few copies of Windows to simply pirate all of them? You can't be in violation of a contract you don't have.
Bring 'em on.... Bitches.
The tighter you squeeze, the more star systems that will slip from your grasp."
Thalasar
Company tries to prevent theft of product
More at eleven
At my former job Microsoft did this to us already. We were one company with two divisions that had individual accounts with Microsoft. Stupid, but that was the way that the owner wanted it. Anyway Microsoft was reviewing the size of the company (from what source I don't know) and only one of the division's software purchase from them and demanded an audit claiming that we did not purchase enough software to run a busniess the size we were. They implyed that we must be 'pirateing' some software. It was a major PITA combining audit data from both divisions.
zenray
We'll gladly comply when Microsoft and the BSA let us audit all their computers and in Microsoft's case, their entire source tree. I think every small business should insist on auditing them on-site.
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sam/lic_cal.ms
About six years ago, myself and several colleagues saw this sort of nonsense becoming more prevalent. At the time our company was considering a move from Windows NT 3.51 to Windows 2000. So we confronted management, and recommended the use of FreeBSD. We prepared some feasibility studies, and they agreeded that our plan was the best one to go forward with.
We successfully replaced our Windows NT infrastructure with FreeBSD. One of the things we like is that the licensing terms are so simple and straightforward. All the bullshit one has to deal with when using Microsoft's products is just not there.
How cool. So Microsoft is going to use their "genuine (dis)advantage" tools to get serious about collecting their license fees.
So what does this do to the "total cost of ownership" of windows versus open source solutions?
How much of those calculations especially at the PHB level - are done assuming either that all their installations are paid for (and nobody installed any extras or forged their identification) or that they can get away with extras - and in either case didn't factor in being audited? (That's a BIG cost even (especially) if it turns out you're squeaky-clean.)
Perhaps this will create additional incentives to switch.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
..to be MS-free 2-3 years down the road for any given company. Certainly for a start-up. Linux and OS X can easily take care of much of the market. MS should consider swaying customers to continue to be customers through positive reinforcement.
I literally haven't been in a tech/management meeting where there wasn't ouright begrudgement at the mention of MS and MS-technologies.
"Seriously, the few advantages Windows supposedly has over Linux can't be worth the threat of a license audit"
The "few"? Do you have any idea what you're talking about? The advantages extend beyound MS and involve humdreds of companies that create add-ons for MS products, all the way to training, books, full-fledged software that runs on MS products, etc. And that's just the commercial aspects. There's plenty of people who write free software, templates, scripts, advise users in forums, etc. When Linux has as much third-party support as MS, then you all can go "a few".
The BSA still needs some evidence (other than a lack of response) in order to initiate an action. Discovery rules in the UK do not allow the types of fishing expeditions that are common in US civil court proceedings. I wonder if Microsoft takes a detailed look at their logs from update servers and WGA servers to identify pirated systems?
Other than that, perhaps some PHBs make ill-advised decisions to comply and allow audits?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
I work at a company that primarily uses Linux for all development.
But all boxes even those that have only Linux installed still have Windows license stickers on them.
Will the BSA give a refund? Perhaps the refund can go to a charity, like EFF?
http://www.osv.org.au/index.cgi?tid=91
One of the hoariest linux switch stories is about Ernie Ball, a company that makes guitar strings. The BSA treated them miserably and tried to make an example of them with a court case and huge publicity. Ball retaliated by switching to Linux and launched their own publicity campaign aimed right back at Microsoft.
Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place on this one. They could end up with a bunch more high profile switching-to-linux stories to contend with.
for point b), I was trying to think of a concise way to say that without harsher language.
Ice Cream has no bones.
After all, TFA said Microsoft was going to target small businesses which by the very nature of their smallness are a much more flexible entity and able to implement such a change fairly easily.
Then again, I could be wrong....
It's only paranoia if your wrong...
No. The tighter I squeeze, the higher your voice rises. If anything escapes, I don't think you'd want it.
RTFA, if you must, but never RTFS.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Sending the heavies around can only result in an increase in adoption of alternatives. See Ernie Ball for a case study.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
In Capitalist West Microsoft always watches you for server licence discrepancy.
In Soviet Russia kgb never waits for discrepancy to watch you.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I guess after all the fines they are / had to pay in EU, they gotta get it back someway. Way to go MS! ::sarcasm::
Why didn't they do this 6 months or a year back? Nope, they're waiting for Vista. Thus is an extra encouragement for people to "Get Legal" and thus get Vista and push up Vista sales numbers.
After a few months people (shareholders, analysts etc) will be looking at Vista sales and they better be selling it like crazy to support all the hype.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
DX10 is Vista only, requires new DX10 hardware to work to full potential, is launched in parallel with a new 'Games for Windows' initiative, and Microsoft can't come up with a convincing explanation why DX10 won't be released for XP.
Connecting the dots: DX10 probably includes a DRM scheme for games, possibly enforced at the level of the DX10 graphics hardware.
Imagine being able to tell the Microsoft auditor to fuck himself/herself, and when the big heavies show up, all they see are peace lovin' penguins fluttering around the office with no short and curlies to grip on to.
Oh the horror!
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
You didn't really think you could mis-quote Star Wars HERE did you??
If you're truly small, you'll never see this audit, because unlike what the article submitter thinks, 250 workstations is not a small company.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
... legally that's fair enough - if you're a business and you pirate software to run on your PCs then you've got to expect that there's a chance that you'll get caught.
Whether Microsoft legally can fulfill all the threats of auditing etc is irrelevant: PHBs of businesses with ~250 PCs don't consult lawyers that frequently - they ask the IT guy "Are we running any pirate copies of Windows?". If the answer is yes then they know they're breaking the law and they don't have a legal department to deal with a legal onslaught from Microsoft.
Now, in commercial terms Microsoft are gambling on this threat convincing businesses to decide to pay up for the extra x% of licences to make sure all of their ~250 PCs are legally licenced.
In some cases this might backfire and cause a business to re-examine its reliance on Windows and decide that the I.T. budget for 2007 doesn't cover buying the extra licences and paying for upgrading the entire company to Vista (which PHBs know they must do because Microsoft's adverts tell them so). At this point the PHB might suddenly start listening to the IT guy who says "Of course, there is another option which won't hurt the budget so much...".
A threat to the company's 2007 budget of that size (buying all the licences and upgrading to Vista) can be the catalyst that brings Linux to company desktops. Or am I just being overly optimistic?
the lazarus corporation
Hrm... I think the editor made a mistake.
It should be "Microsoft to Get Tough on Paying Customers"
Seriously, with all the Windows Verification in force we are lucky to be able to swap a network card without having to call Microsoft to get re-authorized.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
And further, While the summary isn't directly misleading on this point, one does assume they're hinting at the US. Surely this will come to the US sooner or later (sooner rather than later, one would imagine) but it's not here yet.
Mind you, I recognize this is slashdot and debates have raged for years that the site doesn't purport to be an unbiased news source but rather news commentary (think FOX News or CNN and such), but please, for me, try to be at least a little objective? Or "fair and balanced," if you swing that way.
. . . they sent three big Eagle Scouts over to beat me into submission. Now I have to walk with a cane. Pay your license fees, people. It's not worth it!!
"If your parents never had children, chances are you wonât either." -Dick Cavett
Ernie Ball. :)
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Here is part of the text of a story posted on CNET today:
By Michael Kanellos
About South Korea's 'dependency' on Microsoft
Story last modified Mon Jan 29 07:28:02 PST 2007
A couple of people recently have alleged that South Korea is being pushed around by Microsoft. It's not nearly as bad as it sounds.
"This nation is also a unique monoculture where 99.9% of all the computer users are on Microsoft Windows. This nation is a place where Apple Macintosh users cannot bank online, make any purchases online, or interact with any of the nation's e-government sites online," wrote South Korean blogger Gen Kanai. Commentators on technology news site Slashdot have also tsk-tsk-ed the situation.
The pending release of Vista has prompted many to speculate that it could increase security risks.
To some, this looks like the ugly face of monopolism and bad decisions by government leaders and large corporations. But there is actually a much simpler reason why people in South Korea have so much Microsoft software.
They steal it.
Piracy is rampant in the nation. During my visit to the country two and a half years ago, one of the most entertaining topics was how businesses dodged police raids for pirated software. They sounded like tales from Prohibition.
Do people want to steal software? No, but they worry about costs and staying competitive, and right now many believe the risk of piracy is worth it.
In the city Incheon, near Seoul, police investigators who were empowered to audit software on PCs snuck in through an office building's back exit, according to a source who worked for an Internet service provider inside the facility at the time. A receptionist immediately began to call all the businesses in the building.
"Everyone closed their doors," the former ISP employee said at the time. The ISP wasn't so lucky. Its employees didn't get out in time, and the company had to pay $42,000 (50 million won) in software licenses and fines.
At another building, someone held the door closed while other people shoved laptops out the window, I was told. Two other people I spoke to--the president and the chief technology officer of a growing company--went out for lunch one day, but then had to hide in the next-door parking lot for two hours until a surprise raid ended at their building.
People laughed when they told me these stories, and not just because it was 2 a.m. One of the more popular methods of avoid ing the law apparently is to befriend someone in the government who can divulge the timing of a pending raid. A companywide holiday is then declared.
Do people want to steal software? No, but they worry about costs and staying competitive, and right now many believe the risk of piracy is worth it. Intellectual property rights are also a little tough to enforce sometimes. In Seoul, there is a Samsung Wedding Chapel, but it's not owned by the Samsung Electronics conglomerate. The country sometimes feels like the wild west with big-screen TVs.
"They just close the door, because they know it is the fastest way to get away," said a Microsoft representative at the time.
The government and Microsoft work together closely because piracy creates trade headaches for South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication. The country depends on exports, and the last thing its government and business leaders want is to have to deal with questions that put them on the defensive. Piracy also hurts the local software market..."
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
I didn't know the Boy Scouts of America worked for MS, doesn't surprise me though...
From the article:
"For example, a company with 250 PCs may be flagged if it bought several server licences but only two client-access licences..."
I wonder how many -- perhaps many, perhaps few -- companies flagged like this might be running exchange on the back end, and windows for the CEO and a few other higher-ups, but the rest of the company's workstations are running evolution on linux...
"Have your cake and eat it, too" is an idiom meaning "To have it both ways." It was originally "Eat your cake and have it, too" but became confused in popular usage, to the point where the corrupted form is understood (by most people) and accepted, while the more sensible original form is not.
Hope this clears that up for you.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
And in the U.K. if it turns out that you were in compliance you can recoup your costs from them in court.
Since when did the Boy Scouts of America become the enforcement arm of MS? Must be some sort of new ethics related merit badge.
:)
Name: Mr. Anon E Mouse; SSN: 555-55-5555
In their eyes its a choice between paying more and more money (in such a manner that never really looks bad and can be justified by 'but its just they way its done') or installing a complete new OS/Office software suite that will have everyone up in arms because their icons have changed and the cut and paste button has moved.
Its a no brainier, 1 meek explanation to your direct superior about a few more dollars spent on "essential software" or the entire company screaming blue murder because change has happened.
I wish it wasn't so..
You don't know how hard I found it, signing the order to terminate your Windows licence. Don't you just want to shove a proton torpedo up Gates and Co's exhaust shaft? Fuckers.
I never understood people propensity toward masochism.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Ubuntu
This is a story a near pension accountant told me a few years ago. We are talking about a small company, say 35 employees and about 20 workstations. Back in the 70's, they bought a Unix system, which in the beginning cost them a large sum of money, but they were happy with it, because apart from the initial cost and some maintenance now and then (since they didn't have an indoor it-guy), it ran what they needed, and they used the system for about 25 years. The costs spread over that amount of time, was pretty low. But then came the day they had to modernize the whole system. So they started looking around, and that's when an MS-only company stepped in. They were lured by the typical MS-marketing talk (it's cheap, it's good, it'll work perfect for your company, Unix is old and out of time). So they bought new pc's and a server with windows NT, all the software they needed (accounting and such) and they set of. He told me that was the biggest mistake his company had ever made. Over the past 10 years, they spend 4 times more then in the 25 years before. In the beginning it all looked sweet, but then the trouble started. Since then they haven been on a constant upgrade scheme. Software becomes outdated, because the accounting software is updated regularly (first it was "requires" SP6, then it became win2k, ...), and when the accounting software must be updated, the machines and OS soon follow. They are now in a "change-everything-every-3-to-5-years" cycle, from which they find it very hard to escape. And which costs them a shit load of money every time (not to mention downtime because of these upgrades). If he had known then, what he knows now, he would never have chosen for MS in the first place, but by now, they feel so tied to MS and have spent so much money on it, that they have no option then to tag along with MS, mostly against their will. This is just an example from my personal life, but i keep wondering how many more of these companies exist.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I've always felt that if companies were actually able to enforce their insane licensing requirements, they'd lose all their customers.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
I can just see people getting the offer to buy Vista licenses in exchange for dropping the infringement claims. Certainly one way to build a userbase, and the sales pitch is oddly more palatable than the usual bullshit.
Simply follow the directions outlined here.
Once you have updated your software, send a letter thanking them for motivating you
to update your OS and Applications to the latest and greatest software.
More and more people are up-to-date with help from the New Improved Windows Updater.
And yet, Sony is still the evil one. Riiight.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Could you please site a reference, maybe a section number or something? I looked at the XP EULA and I don't see it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
or stunt your growth with Microsoft Windows.
Install a Windows server and pay an exorbitant fee for every workstation you put on that server.
$150 or so per workstation, that's excluding the cost of the OS on the workstation.
or, install a Linux server and place as many workstations as you want on it for free.
Your business starts with 5 windows workstations and a server.
windows cost: server OS cost $400, workstations OS cost $500 total cost: $900
Linux cost: server OS cost $800(SUSE) workstations OS cost $500 total cost: $1300
over 2 years, you grow your business in size to 15 windows workstations and the same server.
windows cost: server licenses cost: $1720 10 more workstations OS cost: $1000 total cost: $2720
Linux cost: server licenses cost: free 10 more workstations OS cost: $1000 total cost: $1000
within 5 years, you now have 50 windows workstations and 2 servers.
windows cost: additional server licenses cost: $2000 35 more workstations OS cost: $3500 total cost:5500
Linux cost: additional server licenses cost: $800 35 more workstations OS cost: $3500 total cost: $4300
over the five year span, the total cost of the windows shop is $9120 just for the operating system.
the total cost of the Linux shop is $6600 just for the operating systems.
now, if you're thinking like I am, and started the business as a total Linux shop, the total cost would have been $1600
even if you forget the maintenance costs associated with windows, Linux is still cheaper.
These prices are ballparked on 2003SBS and XP.
all you need is the hardware and 2 good admins with Linux instead of the army of MCSEs running around trying to cope with Microsoft's security nightmare.
They're using their grammar skills there.
a few high profile cases and it will push more people to non MS solutions.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
They have a lot of balls pers/prosecuting people for what is usually weak bookeeping. If MS wants us to keep track of things THEIR WAY then they have to provide THEIR WAY of doing that that doesn't add a lot of overhead to me.
...Microsoft launched a massive audit campaign against government agencies... not against the feds obviously, mind you, but rather against mostly small local govts and school districts. They did this because they wanted to obtain some kind of revenge against "the government" in any way, shape, form, or fashion that they could get away with... and that meant by targeting the small govt organizations which were least equipped for defending themselves and which would be harmed the most by having to stop all their regular daily govt business and perform an exhaustive internal audit and dig up all related purchase paperwork, which took days or weeks to complete... and which made the MS licensing gestapos gloat with glee that they were causing harm and extra work for some poor old city govt computer techs... when in the end they found that 99.9 percent were in full compliance anyway... they just didn't often have all their software purchase paperwork catalogued and organised in a pristine, easily searchable library because quite frankly, these small govt IT operations tend to have only a small group of folks doing a huge job that should be staffed by a group 3 or 4 times their numbers, and such paperwork is a very low priority in their daily jobs.
Since when did the Boy Scouts end up on MS' payroll? Oh, wait...maybe if you change enough Wikipedia entries, you get a new merit badge.
I'm going to license you a screwdriver. Now under the agreement for using said screwdriver, you are not allowed to use it in a business setting because you only have the "home" edition. And even if you have the "business" edition you are not permitted to use it on a product worth more than $500, if you wish to use it on a product over $500 then you'll need to license our "ultimate edition" screwdriver. And don't even ask for a multi-headed screwdriver, it isn't coming.
Would you license from this company? Probably not. But what if they were a monopoly in the screwdriver business, and no one else could produce the type of bit you needed to work with (and a lack of choice due to network effects).
Sorry for the absurd argument, but I'm sure every company in the world would love to make bullshit rules about the use of their products knowing that not only are they the only game in town, but they have a mafia-like entity protecting them (the BSA).
I feel like a fool, because as I mention here, I don't see that clause in here.
But let's assume that I didn't read it carefully, and the EULA really is how Microsoft obtains that right from their customer. If an audit requirement is in the EULA, then that's a strong argument against EULAs being enforcible. I'll explain...
One of the problems with EULAs, is that there's never any proof (or even evidence) of the contract. Microsoft doesn't have your signature on file. EULA proponents say that the agreement is implied by the presence of the software. Ok, but even if we accept that, where's the externally-visible evidence?
Two users buy a bunch of computer components and put together their computers. User 1 then buys a copy of MS Windows and installs it, thereby agreeing to the contract (according to EULA proponents). User 2 installs Linux; he never bought a copy of Windows, never had one, and never even implicitly agreed to any EULA.
From the outside, these users appear identical. Supposedly, Microsoft has a contract with one of them and not the other, but they don't even know. You can't even determine who agreed to the EULA and who didn't without an audit! But the Linux user, even according to the most rabid Microsoft apologist, never agreed to a Microsoft EULA or a BSA audit.
How can you invoke one of the terms of a license, before it is known whether or not there ever was a license?
Using licenses to support BSA audits, begs the question as to whether or not the user consented to an audit.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Better yet, has the BSA ever helped root out GPL violations? You know, like the ones that Cisco have done?
A client of mine was audited last year, they where "fined" for having a machine sitting in the closet
that had no power supply, CD Rom, or ram in it but had a HD with Win 98 on it and they where unable to produce the the license paperwork, now their license agreement with M$ is no good as M$ will not allow them to renew it.
This is good for them, we are putting linux in at the end of the month and scrapping all of the winbloze stuff.
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
You are 100% correct. I hope MS finally has the balls to start actually enforcing it's EULA. They have every right to pursue and prosecute every single offender. It should be remarkably easy for them to do so. If they are *not* taking advantage of the fact that their operating system could easily automatically detect and report licensing violations, then they are not doing their best to maximize shareholder value, which is a crime.
If Microsoft doesn't stop making empty threats, and does not start demanding payment for licensing violations, then they should be prosecuted for violating their clearly established fiduciary duties. If Microsoft thinks they can enforce their licensing restrictions capriciously, then they should instead be prosecuted for entrapment.
Software that won't register on-line. False positives that turn on nagware saying that the copy of Windows that came with your Dell is counterfeit. Software that de-registers when you take your laptop out of its docking station. You just know that every company with a Windows PC, and probably quite a number without, will be considered by MS to have some sort of "discrepancy".
Why, its almost as if people who license Windows find themselves with an undisclosed balance sheet liability - the cost of an audit, and the risk that even legally purchased copies of Microsoft software will need to be re-purchased because of a lack of documentation.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
I don't see how this would be enforceable. If Microsoft wanted to do a license audit at my company (which isn't very likely since I don't think we have a "genuine" copy of Windows in the whole place, and therefore we wouldn't raise a flag), the owner would just say no and tell them to fuck off. They can threaten legal action all they want, but having a discrepancy between product licenses (as the article uses as an example) isn't proof of a crime.
Not to mention the manpower involved in going after all of the small business customers who pirate. How many small businesses use pirated software? Half of them? More? What is Microsoft going to do, hire the army to take care of this? This seems more like a scare tactic than a legitimate thing. Just my two cents..
Your participation with their audit is voluntary unless they have sufficient probably cause to justify a warrant, in which case they will be accompanied by a law enforcement agent.
Wrong. Participation is voluntary, unless they get a court order, filed as part of a lawsuit. it's not a warrant. Warrants are used in criminal cases, not (private party) civil suits.
Remember that, at least in the US, the evidence must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Yet again, please get your facts straight. Copyright violation is a civil, not criminal, matter. In civil court, the standards of evidence are much, much lower- which is why you can get a parking ticket, have it blown off your windshield, and have the fine double (and if you refuse to pay, your license revoked.)
That said- YES, you should ALWAYS tell the BSA to get off your property and not to come back without a court order. Unless they're fairly certain that you have enough license violations to justify the labor, they won't be back.
Please help metamoderate.
I work at a small company and we have bought all our PCs from Dell with XP (and in some cases MS Office) pre-installed. Over time we have migrated to Open Office. Windows-only business applications keep us locked with Microsoft. A friend (in an admittedly larger company) in NYC told me of their BSA audit, which was triggered when they had a layoff and someone made wild accusations to the BSA hotline. Having sales receipts, POs, cancelled checks, stickers on the PCs, etc was NOT ENOUGH. The auditors will accept nothing as proof, apparently, and from minute one they were talking about a "settlement." Even before they knew if there was anything wrong! They seem to slant the audit to make sure to find fault, no matter how perfect the company is.
So that is my worry. Here I sit, with all software licensed and paid for, but unable to meet some impossible standard and being forced by an extortion scheme to pay again.
Not that this thread is totally relevant to the discussion at hand but here goes.
For 200 workstations you need but 1 shit hot linu admin / developer. These guys do exist
I am one of them, but not cheap I may add. Ok now this is one cream of the crop linux dude
you have here and you have to pay him well so lets just say you fork out 70 - 80K for such
a guy. Now a windows shop you could probably make do with two people(MCSE types) for 50 K so we are
at a net gain so far of 20K at the worst not including benefits and such.
Ok so now let's build out the enterprise..
1. We buy our pc's from cdw just like everyone else in the world and they come preloaded with XP pro. Ok fine we will just run that why reimage the box and it will do for our needs.
2. Shit hot admin loads a fairly hefty server that we plunked down close to 10K on so we subtract the 10K from the net gain we still got 10K left....loads umbuntu server
3. Shit hot admin does a apt-get for samba now we have full file and print sharing, spends rest of day configuring and getting that ready...ok subtract cals not sure what the net gain is but say 5K
sounds like a good number.
4. Shit hot admin on the next day configures samba to do print to pdf conversion and spends a hour on a python script to feed the converted documents to the users email accounts. Now we don't need distiller at 600 dollars per desk.
5. Shit hot admin loads OO on all desktops net gain $600 dollars per seat times 200, since we did not have to buy office.
6. Next you cannot run a company without a database server, shit hot admin loads mysql and postgres on the same box, along with this the appropriate web interfaces. I have not checked
ms sql prices lately with enough licenses to connect 200 users but I am sure it is substantial.
7. Oh wait we need a erp system, shit hot admin goes out to source forge and grabs compiere. Now we have a full featured erp system for the cost of a download. I don't know if you have priced erp systems lately but again the cost is substantial 10's, 100's of thousands of dollars for a group this size.
8. Mail would be nice, lets go out and get a copy of zimbra, now we got both web mail and outlook connectivity.
9. Intranet portal, hundreds to choose from so we choose download and fire up apache, jboss or what have you.
10. The big boys got CRM lets grab that also, download sugar and again away we go.
I can run every bit of that on a single box, no way are you going to even attempt that in a windows environment and even if you did it would cost 100's of thousands of dollars just to
match the software we have running on it already. I could of course continue this but you get the idea....you never scratched the surface.
So total net gain 250,000 back into the bottom line, we use this to dramatically drop our prices and upgrade production related equipment. We gain 22% market share as a result and we are eating competitors alive...now that is what it is all about.
Got Code?
A few times at Free Geek, people have asked me why we don't use Windows. After all, these computers coming in have Windows on them, right? So we can just pass it on to another person, right? And none of these people have bothered to read the EULA, which states: (Point 13 of the Windows XP Home EULA)
People who talk about how "easy" Windows is are not looking at the fact that Windows is more than just the software you use..."Windows" is also the legal terms of ownership. And those often, especially when you are working in a business, get very far from easy. If Microsoft was really auditing the usage of their software, it would get next to impossible. But often people don't know, or just don't care about this. If they were, they would have to factor it into their calculations of "ease".
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
I have trouble when people use phrases like "head over heels in love", when having one's head over his heels is the normal, logical, way for someone to be. I wish my elder daughter had been 'head over heels'....
Or "I could care less", which logically means that you must care SOME. Now, if someone says "I couldn't care less", then they're saying what most people mean. Is it that hard to say what you mean instead of the opposite?
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
This makes me so glad that I run Linux Genuine Advantage instead!
So, I wonder if anyone has told the BSA they would be happy to cooperate with them, as long as they can bill for their time while devoting resources to their audit needs?
"Certainly, our IT Staff can be available to help you, as well as our Accounting Staff. Of course we charge $300 per man-hour, but that's covered in our standard work agreement."
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
You are completely missing the point. The BSA is looking to make money by getting a "settlement." If you refuse to do this they will sue and it will cost you a small furtune to even GET to a jury. It could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, not to mention lost productivity. This is what they hold over your head! Either give us $30,000 or we sue you and even if you win you lose far more than that.
As they collect these settlements they use that to force other companies into settling.
They better come with armed federal marshalls to enter my business. If not, they will either be shot or arrested for trespassing, or both.
They are NOT welcome to evaluate my licensing. Period.
And if they DO come with court order in hand, they better be prepared to be sued for harassment for not haivng *proof* of any illegal activity.
Screw them, they can go harass someone else.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
would it be too much to ask that tags be limited to those which are significant and helpful?
and not just as a substitute for a lameness filter?
Back in 2000, after a BSA audit that resulted in a $90,000 settlement, guitar parts manufacturer Ernie Ball switched to Linux saying "I think that we were so driven to find a solution that the worst reality to us would have been to give up and go back to the people up in Redmond," : http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/11/27/ 021127hnerniball.html?s=IDGNS
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Ok, you defend yourself and business from the microsoft legal machine...we got your back bro
Good luck with that!
Got Code?
The only way out is to not be running any of their software and be able to prove it in court
Do you have a MS optical mouse, natural keyboard, X-box, PDA, etc?
You may have given them permission for the audit because of the shrinkwrap on the firmware. If you go MS free, go all the way. Any MS software including firmware has a EULA. Using a MS optical mouse and not loading the MS driver does not exempt you. Finding a truly MS free business is very hard.
The truth shall set you free!
No. If you want to try out software from Microsoft, almost every product will allow you to in a perfectly legal manner. What do you want to try out? How about Microsoft Office 2007 Pro? Visio? What about Visual Studio Pro? Money? Or maybe you'd like to try out some entertainment software like Age of Empires III, Halo, or Zoo Tycoon?
Don't see something you want in that list? Call Microsoft. They're actually really good at working with businesses (and we are talking about businesses here) at getting them trials and evals of whatever they want.
Yes, it is. No stupid rationalizations, no bandwagons, no mitigating factors, no ifs, ands, or buts; it's wrong, plain and simple.
That's bullshit. How exactly are they encouraging piracy? Seems to me that with all of this WGA shit that's coming down, they're bending over backwards to the point of screwing up honest customers' computers in trying to keep piracy under control. What an idiotic thing to say. What exactly do they have to do to convince you that they don't want you to pirate their software? Send men in sunglasses and black hats to your house to break down your door, check your computer, and break your legs if you've installed their software illegally?
Are you basically saying that having only rudimentary CD-Key verification, or even no verification at all, in previous versions of Windows is somehow encouraging piracy? That's basically saying that right or wrong, it doesn't matter if someone rapes a girl if she was dressed like she wanted it, and like I said, that's bullshit.
Or maybe you're saying that because Microsoft offers sweet deals to OEMs, schools, governments, and big customers that they're encouraging piracy. Guess what... That's bullshit too. Every software company of any decent size does that. It's called trying to sell your software, not asking people to illegally use your stuff. If I make widgets and I offer a volume discount on them, am I asking for people to steal them? No. Do widget pirates have a right to fight back if I try to keep them from stealing widgets? No.
And god knows that I am not a fan of Microsoft or the BSA, but when I read comments like yours, it's hard to not cheer for them. That arrogant smugness, unapologetically doing what you know is wrong, is exactly what makes them look reasonable and justified and what keeps companies and organizations like them in business.
It's people like you who completely undermine everything that people who contribute to FOSS projects stand for. If more people were like you, there'd be no need for things like Linux, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, The Gimp, or any other FOSS. If someone wants an office application, there's no need to look for a FOSS alternative; just pirate a copy of Microsoft Office. Don't use Linux, just pirate a copy of Windows.
God, what a moron.
"They acquired a list of ALL businesses in the area and carpet bombed the place with threatening letters to scare up some business. I know this because one of the businesses was a small Vietnamese restaraunt that didn't even have a computer let alone any Microsoft software."
And you have a copy of this "letter"?
You've been sniffing funny stuff haven't you?
If I had only Microsoft software on my PC I might as well shut it down as it would be completely useless for my work.
And both deserve the same treatment: immediate abolition.
> It is a commercial entity engaged on behalf of a copyright holder to perform audits of suspected license violations
They are, but they have no right to come up and comb through your records.** If they have evidence the law has been broken, take it to the Feds where there are checks and balances. Time is money, and small business has better thing to do than entertain some dork in a suit for day on the hope he might find a duplicate license key. If Microsoft wants to pay me $180 an hour to entertain the dork, I might be interested.
** = Their shrinkwrap agreement says they have all sorts of rights. But shrinkwraps are shaky, and so is a monopoly demanding you waive your rights in order to use their monopoly product.
to Microsoft BOHICA.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
> A monopoly product? Aha! So you finally admit it, Mac OS and Linux
:-)
> are clearly not good enough to be considered as alternatives.
"*Finally* admit it"? Are you stalking me?
Seriously, so many businesses and pretty much all government use Windows. If you want to sell software to these guys, you have to develop Windows. We use Linux on our servers... because we can... but for anything workstation, we're Windows. It bites, but that's the way it is. These guys dictate and as an ISV we have to follow.
I used to be seriously rah-rah OS/2. After that experience, I promised never to get religious about platforms again.
A EULA is not the end all be all that many here believe. Courts have in the past found many parts of many EULAS illegal and unenforceable and unreasonable.
So please stop with the line:
"MS EULA STATES blah, blah, blah"
"Oh, oh MS EULA states I have to had over my first born to install vista. I hope I don't get audited". Get real.
They're sending in the Boy Scouts of America? Now I really feel threatened. Oh, wait, I own more licenses for Windows(3.1/3.11/95/95OSR2/NT4 Server/98/98SE/XP Home/Vista Ultimate Beta2 & RC1) then I have in use? Man, I love Linux. Saves me from them scouts! Note: I do have two comps running XP Home, one running Vista RC1, three running 3.11, two running 98SE, and one running 95OSR2. And I really do have the Certificates of Authenticity listed above, more then I have in use.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Microsoft IS a License Dodger!
How many technologies have they outright stolen and just muscled the owners out of business without a penny paid?
Anybody remember what happened to compu-global-hyper-meganet?
I dunno. I use Microsoft's optical trackball and their keyboards under Linux and I never saw any EULA, not even on a piece of paper in the package. The devices may have firmware in them, but they never presents anything to the user nor requires anything to be loaded from the computer. If the terms of the EULA are never presented anywhere, then it should be a slam-dunk that it's terms are irrelevant. The only EULA is for the use of the software on the included disc, and since I'm not using that I can reject the terms without consequences (they didn't say they were required for the use of the trackball/keyboard, only for the use of the MS software which is sitting there still sealed).
Why do I use an MS trackball and keyboard? Because I prefer a thumb-operated trackball and Microsoft is the only company that makes (or made, they appear to have discontinued it) one that's large enough for my hands. Logitech's is too narrow to be comfortable. As far as the keyboard, I again prefer the touch of the MS over the Logitech and no-name brands. My main keyboards are Unicomp, but if you want ergonomic MS has the best-feeling ones. This is, quite frankly, a sad state of affaird.
The Check against this kind of Bullshit has long since been outlawed. That being, you receive the notice, and politely call them up and invite them over to discuss the matter. When the agents arrive, You execute them on the spot, disembowel them, and send the entrails and severed heads back to their bosses in a sack. The correct, considered, measured response to thuggery is agressive self defense.
The harder they crack down on questionable license situations, the more people get pissed of and move to OSS or other solutions. THere is no way that any commercial entity should have this much power. Ford can't show up and make you prove to their satisfaction that you didn't steal your car. If someone showed up and demanded the receipt for the couch you've had for five years, you'd tell them to piss up a rope, and they'd have no power to do anything. THat's the way it should be with software, too. The burden should really by on the BSA to prove your guilt, not on you to prove your innocence. But the more people they strongarm, the more will choose to move to Linux or some other solution that doesn't expose you to the risk of hellacious audits. I wish more businesses would move to OSS, not so it reaches 100% saturation, but just so OSS isn't seen as odd anymore.
The BSA - now talk about something scary - NOT!
The first thing BSA does is pull the financial statements of said small business. If the business is turning a healthy profit they'll proceed with a case, otherwise they'll decline to follow up.
I know this because I turned in a former employer. Actually got confirmation from BSA that the business was on shaky ground and so it wasn't worth their while to pursue litigation.
that all your chairs are bolted down to the floor.
Well, there is no way MS would sue anyone where I live at the moment.
When they threatened to crack down on big businesses, the result was enough threats to switch to Linux to make them stfu. The funny thing is that IBM seems to be being successful in getting people to pay for Notes.
As for small businesses, they just pirate everything they use.
This makes me so glad that I run Linux Genuine Advantage instead!
;-)
They blew it! They put the source code on the page giving away the crown jewels. From there you can see the source of the remote server and build your own validation server and use the hosts file to redirest to your own validation server. How do they intend to make money with that big IP leak.
Should I tell them? Use this information before they patch it.
The truth shall set you free!
I reported my previous boss to the BSA for his heavy piracy (which lead to my quitting) and guess what -- he's still in business and hasn't been contacted. It's been two months. He had several 2003 Enterprise Servers and at least 100 XP and Office XP that were pirated. Not to mention the VMWare ESX Servers that were pirated, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (seriously, why? WHY!?), and the many copies of Photoshop.
He's still somehow in business when he couldn't afford the licenses for that stuff anyway. I've never been contacted back by the BSA. Needless to say, I'm rather upset, and wish I could just do some vigilante justice and nuke his systems, but I have morals.
I think both the BSA and RIAA are simply suing/auditing at random, based on their estimate of piracy they have a 80% (or whatever the statistic is) success rate, and the other 20% will settle anyway.
we're all switching to macs anyway ... yawn.
calling all destroyers
Did anybody here ever try to READ the license agreements from M$FT? Or understand the licensing strategy that is used on their various products?
When talking about a small-time business, where usually a single person handles issues such as software and hardware purchasing part-time, the task of figuring out what licenses are needed, where and when are daunting if not out-right impossible.
So a very hefty chunk of the blame on licensing problems in small businesses lies in the hands of the guys from Redmond.
Simplify the license terms and strategies and write them in a clear, easy to understand, logical and uniform way est voilla - Most of these "evil culprits" will do the right thing!
The EULA only applies if they can prove I have accepted it. Which I have not done since 1999, and that was in another company, another country, and they can't even prove that.
Microsoft could sue you, you could get into a costly lawsuit, your company could go broke.
Switch to Linux, the open source operating system.
Get Linux today!
* Red Hat Enterprise Linux - http://www.redhat.com/
* SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 - http://www.novell.com/linux/
It offers a complete solution for your mission-critical needs!
the moderator missed out the most important point!
I had added " Is this an opportunity for Linux? And if so, how would you go about getting small businesses to take advantage of it?
I could write all this M$ bashing myself. What we need is ideas to DO something about it!
Someone mod this up so it gets noticed. Please!
"Enough people want to buy it at that price to allow Adobe to have a really nice building."
But that's not how it works is it! They can never drop the price because the old stock in the channel is priced at the old price. So they always have to increase the price to avoid pissing off their dealers and customers.
So $650 is way overpriced for Photoshop but there's no way they can drop it to $80 now, even though it would give them 20x-50x the legitimate sales. So pricing theory it's fine in *theory*, yet flawed in practice because even if a price cut is called for they can never do it because of their existing relationships.
Double-dipping from Microsoft happens as well. My client is a major bank. They get our PCs with XP Professional (the stickers are still on the cases). However, they deploy with volume licenses. Many large organisations are like this. Sure the client doesn't pay retail but it isn't exactly zero price when every one of their tens of thousands of employees is running XP.
Microsoft's argument is that the PCs get sold on after a few years and this way, they are certain that the PCs remain licensed.
At nearly 500 comments this post will probably be lost in the noise. Nevertheless, I think it deserves to be modded to some level of visibility?
I wrote the original item with a request for people to think about what opportunities this M$ move had for Linux penetration. As we know, techies are not listened to when it comes to purchasing strategy. The moderator went and deleted this most important part of the OP!
There is an opportunity here to get the ear of a lot of small businesses. It is a GOOD news item. I quote:
'The publication of 'bad news' is not a journalistic vice. It's a clear instruction from the market. It's what consumers, on average, demand. As a newspaper editor I knew, as most editors know, that if you print a lot of good news, people stop buying your paper. Conversely, if you publish the correct mix of doom, gloom and disaster, your circulation swells. I have done the experiment.'
(Julian Cribb, Australasian Science, August 2002, p. 38)
What we need here are articles submitted to small business magazines, painting a 'global warming' picture of the impact of licensing problems, and adding a simple technical paragraph or two about Linux/Open Office/Wine.
Who says that MicroShaft are the only people who can use FUD and legal threats to increase their market penetration?
you are warned.
What you mean I can't effectivly pirate winblows anymore? Guess we need to try that linux thang.
That's what I did at my company. They aren't worth the time. If they want to get a court order fine, let them. Then we'll worry about it, until then, there is no good that can come from having a conversation with them.
...these things are. Keep getting bullied by the BSA ? ditch them, you don't need them. Did I mention non-BSA software is sometime free, even Libre ?
How can you prove that the Certificates of Authenticity is yours
Will the BSA give a refund? Perhaps the refund can go to a charity, like EFF?
http://marc.merlins.org/linux/refundday/Thats been tried before. One has to wonder at the validity of an EULA when even MS doesn't follow it.
But the Linux user, even according to the most rabid Microsoft apologist, never agreed to a Microsoft EULA or a BSA audit.
Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. It could be argued that, in purchasing a computer (or computer components) from a company who has paid Microsoft for the right to exist and do business, you are inheriting that company's legal entanglements, including Microsoft's right to bend you over and make you sing soprano. It wouldn't be too difficult to include, as part of Microsoft's deal with hardware manufacturers, an agreement that the hardware manufacturer will not sell to any customer that does not agree to Microsoft's terms. Then it's simply a matter of applying the correct amount of leverage to the legal system to overlook the inherent illegality of such an agreement.
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
I've noticed that license compliance software is one of the Latest Big Things in the VAR market. Goes to show what a threat auditing is, when it's become a cash cow for 3rd parties too.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Er, it would be nice if that were the case, but it's not so. In every state I've lived in, you could get your license suspended for failure to pay municipal parking tickets.
Here's some information on Connecticut's policy (read about halfway down, or search for "Unpaid Connecticut parking tickets"), and Googling "license suspension unpaid parking tickets" will find you many more states. Generally, you get a written warning note in the mail telling you to pony up, and if you don't, then they'll pull your license, at which point in order to drive again, you have to pay the fines, any late fees on them, and an additional $100+ to get your license back.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I think (recalling the last time I bothered to read the Windows EULA) that you are correct about point A, a big part of the agreement is an indemnification of them for basically everything and anything, but I'm not so sure about point B. I don't recall anything in the EULA about audits. It's possible there are audit rights in the corporate site licenses, though.
But as has been pointed out elsewhere in the thread, the BSA doesn't really even use the EULA, and they for the most part don't even use the legal system except as a bludgeon. They merely threaten to sue (which would presumably allow them to perform a license audit as part of discovery, and generally trash your business and distract your employees for a few weeks), and most companies roll over. The companies that have pockets deep enough to really fight with the BSA, like IBM, mostly don't get tousled with anyway.
It's a straightforward extortion scheme; they don't need anything in the EULA to enable them. They just threaten to create an obnoxious and expensive lawsuit, until you agree to let them in to do their audit, during which will inevitably find license issues, following which they will make up some figure to charge you as a "settlement" to avoid court.
There's not much complexity to it: first, they come to you, and say "let us perform an audit, or we'll sue you, get a court order, and come back and do it anyway." So, you try to get your licenses in order, and let them in to do their audit. They refuse to honor whatever evidence you thought was going to assuage them, and tell you that you're non-compliant. They then threaten to sue you again, and this time they have "evidence" (which you conveniently handed them, when you let them do their audit). At this point, you're stuck, and they know it, so they toss you an 'out' in the form of some settlement, which you would have laughed at initially, but now happily pay.
They don't need anything in the EULA to accomplish that con; it's just a straightforward intimidation game. They're bigger than you, and have more lawyers, therefore you lose.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."