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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."
They quote d'Idiot. Wasted click.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
"We hired a guy to go through and audit and get us legal, but he didn't work out," the business owner said. "So we fired him and that's when he went and ratted us out."
What, are we supposed to feel sorry for the business owner aka software pirate? Watch out, here comes the clue bat...don't fire people who you hire to clean up your illegal messes. What is it with incompetent business owners who blame their employees. If you don't have the competence to manage your company's finances without breaking the law, maybe it's NOT the guy you hired who isn't working out.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
Oppressive??? Over-throw (sic)??? You seem to be conflating private businesses with governments. You *do* realize that no one is putting a gun to these people's heads and forcing them to use Microsoft/Adobe/Apple/Autodesk products, right? Or don't you? It seems like you think that these companies have governmental powers compelling businesses to use their software.
Of course, the fact you're trying to ignore is that for the majority of business applications there's no F/OSS adoption because, well, the F/OSS alternatives just plain suck. (Seriously, is anyone in the mainstream engineering community actually using PyCADD? How many graphic designers are using GIMP?). This isn't going to change; F/OSS authors are almost universally uninterested in adapting their software to meet business needs (or do not have the time or talent or resources).