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BSA's Tactics and Motives Questioned
_Hellfire_ sends us over to Baseline Magazine for a longish article entitled After 20 Years, Critics Question the BSA's Real Motives, which paints the Business Software Alliance in the same colors as the RIAA. "A recent Associated Press story highlighted the fact that 90 percent of the $13 million collected by the BSA in 2006 came from small businesses. Since 1993 the group has collected an estimated $89 million in damages from businesses on behalf of its members, every penny of which it keeps. 'I don't know of a business where you can get away with raiding a customer with armed marshals and expect them to continue to do business with you...' said [Sterling] Ball, who shifted his company to open source software after the raid."
Is it only in the technology world where it seems that vendors and their customers are more like adversaries? Is there any other realm where the manufacturer demonizes the very people that buy the products that pay the rent? I'm sure the fact that 0s and 1s are easy to replicate makes this standoff easy to achieve but it's to point where a valid business model would include giving something away and then suing everyone to pay the bills. Of course, it already is a business model, I suppose. When it comes to patent trolls, the music and movie industry, and software producers it just seems like they are able to get away with treating their customers like dirt more than anywhere else.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
A) much of the time they get their authority to raid you from the agreements you signed when you became a customer; not being a customer makes you much safer
B) most of the people they get actually had licenses but have no clue how to fulfill the strict audit requirements. No the stickers on the back of your machine are not enough. You must have a purchase agreement for _everything_
C) most of the time the they threaten jail sentences (for the IT managers and staff) and accept money.
People just don't bother to fight because it's not worth it unless you are whiter than white, which is almost impossible in any company actually working and not spending it's entire time preparing for a BSA audit.
In other words, the best way to avoid the BSA is to stop being a Microsoft customer and switch over entirely to free software like Linux. Even if you claim the proprietary stuff is better (which it isn't) is it really worth destroying your life for a few bucks more of your employer's time?