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How the BSA Squeezes the Little Guys
netbuzz writes "Actually, 90% of the Business Software Alliance's revenue is squeezed from small businesses accused of using unlicensed software. A lawyer who represents some of them says his clients often suspect that it was the IT guy who just left — and was responsible for maintaining the licenses — who ratted them out for a big BSA reward."
They can't force you to have an audit (unless you signed a contract). They can submit the case to the police and the have them investigate. They can then raid the office and check your licensing. If you are 100% linux, then the case gets dropped. The BSA is just a proxy to sue people, so in case you sue back, you can't hurt the ones that are actually trying to extort you. Same as RIAA, MIAA, etc. Can they knock on your door and say "we want to audit you" ... Yes, but you can refuse.
please excuse my apathy
Shareware was made by programmers when the terms "open source" or "free/libre software" were unknown. There was no such thing as the Internet, or e-mail. Programmers coded for a living, and sold programs for a living. I remember the times where all PC computers were 386, ran MS-DOS, had 32MBytes of RAM. Programming was mostly considered a hobby except for large enterprises (i.e. Lotus, Borland, Microsoft, and such). Most hobbyists didn't pay for programming languages - they were pirated because they were too expensive.
You logged into BBS's whose phone numbers you found on specialized magazines. Meetings were held with the 5 or 10 people in your area, and paid-for software was seen as a valuable treasure. Owners of that software would share it with their friends, and the original discs were treated as some kind of ancient artifact which belonged in a museum.
That's how you learned to program back then. You pirated the language, and eventually you began producing stuff worth selling. Then you bought your first legitimate copy of the language.
That's how things were done those days. It was rough, primitive, but fun at the same time. It was the way of the Old West.
In the files sections, you downloaded all these utility programs (hard disk optimizers, text editors, quit-smoking organizers and such) that expired in around 30 days, and you could register them for 5 or 20 bucks. It was cheap, and reasonable.
These small-scale programmers were defenseless against crackers and pirates, who didn't retribute them for their effort. So they turned to the BSA to help them punish the thieves who just stole their software.
It was how business was done back then. Getting organized at a national level to make good software for free was unthinkable. You had to charge for your code, and it was OK. To program, you had to actually buy software. I remember how expensive was to purchase a copy of Borland/C++ or Turbo Pascal (with Turbo Vision!) so you could make decent programs. It may sound like heresy in the G++ times of today, but that's how it was.
It was rough, primitive, but fun at the same time. It was the way of the Old West.
But times have changed.
We have GNU and the Free Software/Open Source licenses now - and software is being developed by teams of independent programmers working for a common goal: Freedom (I'm relatively new to GNU/Linux, and I was awed at the amount of Free/Libre Open Source Software for Linux). I compare my GNU/Linux box to my close friends' windows boxes - often filled with "freeware" and paid-for/cracked shareware developed in Visual Basic most of the time, and I can't even start to describe the difference. It's all chaotic and primitive in the Windows world.
When I go to a webpage and see a Windows app for say, transferring your ipod files to your computer, or ripping/burning a CD, I see the price tag and think: "Are they kidding me? They charge for THIS STUFF?"
The BSA and old software business models (just like the RIAA and MPAA's) are going the way of the dodo bird. They have no place in the open world of today.
This is a common popular etymology, but its wrong. The phrase is a maxim of legal interpretation and means exactly what the words in their common, current english uses suggest: the existence of an exception demonstrates the existence of a more general, contrary, rule that applies in cases outside of the exception. Particularly, it refers to the idea that when something is expressly prohibited in certain cases (the exception) this establishes that it is allowed in all cases not prohibited (the rule "proved" by the exception.)
Of course, the application of it to examples like the one here has nothing to do with its original legal sense, and arguably really don't have anything to do with any real sense of "proving" the rule, whether "testing" or "demonstrating". Its just become a common thing to say when you point out an exception at the same time as a proposed general rule but want people not to discount the rule based on the exception that you are mentioning.
"all PC computers were 386, ran MS-DOS, had 32MBytes of RAM"
Thats one hell of a lot of RAM for a 386...
The only reason they target the small businesses is because they can't defend themselves, period. Large businesses are generally MUCH worse offenders, but they are MUCH more likely to defend themselves with lawyers because it's more cost-effective.
Another point is that flexible license terms and the tools needed to manage licenses are often only made available to large businesses. Large businesses can get "site licenses" so they don't have to track individual licenses. They are often given the software or other tools needed to manage licenses that small businesses must pay for. They are also far more likely to have the manpower necessary to devote time to license management. Software vendors, especially at the small-business level, often try to double-bill on licenses as well.
That OEM copy of Office that came with your Dell? Well, you can't put that on another system if you get rid of that old Dell. That's not exactly common knowledge, nor is it out in the open; it's buried in the EULA.
This is a problem that's fairly widely known among charitable organizations. People often offer to donate computers to them, thinking that it's a valuable donation. But if it's a Microsoft system, such a donation only covers the hardware. You can't legally donate the software. If the charitable organization doesn't purchase their own copy of the software, wipe the disk, and reinstall their legal copy, they are in volation and can be victimized by the BSA or the software companies. And they'd better save all the receipts, because otherwise any software found on their disks will be assumed illegal.
I know of a number of organizations that have a policy of wiping contributed disks and installing linux (usually Red Hat, but Ubuntu is getting popular). But many don't, and are using the software that came with the hardware. If you're involved with a charitable organization, you might check into this, and try to explain to them the dangers of using software from Microsoft or other such corporations. The best approach might be to ask them if they can show you their receipts for every proprietary program on their disks. If not, they're risking being hauled into court and fined a lot of money.
Has anyone here been involved with a charitable organization that has dealt with this? It might be interesting to hear your story.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I remember the times where all PC computers were 386, ran MS-DOS, had 32MBytes of RAM
No, you don't remember. PCs were 386 and ran MS-DOS back in the late 1980s/very early 90's. Back then very few PCs had more than 2MB of RAM; 4MB at most, and that cost an arm and a leg ($1000+). With the 640KB DOS regular memory limit, there were few programs that used extended memory for large datasets to make more than 2MB useful. AutoCAD and Lotus could. Use of 4MB or more didn't happen until the advent of Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups which allowed you to more easily run more than one application. This was circa 1991-1993, and even then it was pretty rare because it was still quite expensive. 32MB didn't become common on non-server PCs until well after 1995.
Unless you're going to backpedal and try to claim that Windows 95 "was MS-DOS" underneath. That would also be wrong since MS-DOS was only used as a boot-strap loader for the Windows kernel. MS-DOS wasn't a "32-bit protected-mode" operating system like the Windows 95 kernel, which did the real O/S work when the GUI was running.
Probably not. What they want to see is an item showing the amount you paid for your Windows license, to prove you really did pay for it. If you didn't pay for it, or can't show where you paid for it, you didn't pay for it in their eyes. You may be able to argue, but you'll probably have to do the arguing in court and at that point the cost means you've lost even if you win.
That hologram sticker means absolutely nothing in the context of paying for the license. It's necessary in that it's proof that that particular copy is genuine and not a counterfeit or illegally-produced copy, but on it's own it's not sufficient to prove you've a legal right to that copy. And the receipt is necessary but not sufficient: it proves you paid for a license but doesn't prove the copy you're running is a legal copy. You need both of them together, proof that your copy is genuine and legal and proof that you paid for your license to run it.
I had a customer a few years back, which was a non profit organisation. The director just rang up Microsoft and they sent her a big box containing 5x Windows XP Pro, 5x Office Professional, Windows 2000 SBS and various other goodies. No charge. YMMV, but it appears that Microsoft has a no cost licencing program for non profit organisations and charities. All that is required is for the organisation to ask.
Don't tailgate - the end is near!