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US Military Settles Software Piracy Claims For $50M
Rambo Tribble writes "The BBC reports that the U. S. government has agreed to pay software maker Apptricity $50 million to settle claims that the U.S. Army pirated thousands of copies of the firm's provisioning software. The report indicates 500 licensed copies were sold, but it came to light an army official had mentioned that 'thousands' of devices were running the software." $50 million in tax money could have paid for a whole lot of open source software development, instead.
$50 million could have paid for a whole lot of private sector open source software development.
If the military had spent the money on development, they might have finished the request for proposals before running out of funding...
it could have also paid for the software... and probably be a lot cheaper then $50 million on open source...
I only say this because there is an obvious 'zomg go open source' vibe to the post... Obviously, it would be nice id governments threw money at open source software development, but then o then taxpayers would probably complain since it doesn't directly benefit them in a way their minds can comprehend
$50 million in tax money could have paid for a whole lot of open source software development, instead.
Bullshit. A government designed website cost over $600 million, for $50 million you only get the committee that argues about the design, and only for a year or so.
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$50 million in tax money could have paid for a whole lot of open source software development, instead.
How would that not be spending tax dollars to compete with private industry? What kind of an ass backwards priority system does this poster have? Take money away from honest citizens at gun point and give this money to their competition? How is this even remotely ethical?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Its the government, what did you expect :P Government does everything in way its most expensive as possible.
I think timothy added the FOSS douchebag statement, not the submitter.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
I doubt the Army official knew they were pirated.
I don't believe this.
The Army has a professional IT program. Everyone from the commanders down to the bottom have to do CBT's and attend briefings on this subject.
The grunts using the apps might have no clue what / when / where the software was loaded, but the officers from the butter-bars on up certainly did.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
$50 million in tax money could have paid for a whole lot of open source software development, instead.
Maybe, but then again maybe they needed something that works today, so funding development of something that will work in two years simply wasn't an option? Not everything in this world is a conspiracy, you know?
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Most likely what happened is the US Military bought the software, which may or may not be the best solution but clearly it was the most viable software solution available suited for the specific needs of modern arm forces logistics. Then what happened is the user seat requirements outstripped the original purchase numbers. BECAUSE THE FRIGGIN' SOFTWARE is written on a per seat basis and most likely a timed rental lease. And this is why the distribution became a warez situation.
EVERYBODY wants to pull a Microsoft and create something that becomes a cash cow that feeds them beyond the actual value of the original creation, is timed to expire and cause the users to send more cash.
Now we complicate the situation with the recent cutbacks in military funding for procurement of frills like this software. Someone with a hand on the accounting made the decision that increasing the site license numbers was not financially justified. This in turn caused the military IT person(s) responsible for deployment of this software to but heads with staff that was lower down than the pencil necks that cut their procurement budgets. So most likely some Colonel somewhere reamed out the poor IT staff so bad about not having the rights to deploy more copies without the budget that they just turned a blind eye and handed out copies instead of facing some Colonel Blowhard every time Lieutenant Hothead complained about the IT department not letting them accomplish their mission.
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Every government software expenditure on software licences has something to do with the alternate, the development of a free open source software solution. Where the purchase of software licences exceeds the cost of direct development of the software solution, which can then be made available to the public for free those people who paid for the development, then that is money blatantly thrown away and brings to immediate mind, what was the corruption in the process that allowed that poor decision. The only douchebag thing going on is why tax payer dollars are continually being used to favour a few with bloated profits from licensed software solutions whilst the majority miss out on any benefit from free open source solutions.
Government software solutions should always favour open source for two reasons. One it means direct payment to local developers for initialising and customising those solutions, whether as direct salary payments, contracts and or prizes for specific solutions and, two of course those solutions now become available to the tax paying public for free as they have already have paid for them.
So yeah, every time the government spends money on software licences it is money lost to the public for no benefit to the public and this has 'EVERYTHING TO DO' with the future investment of taxpayer dollars in software and should be mentioned 'EACH AND EVERY TIME' a story comes up about the government spending money on software licences rather than investing in free open source software, local developers and future public accessibility to that software.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Bullshit. Argue your point or shut the fuck up. Heh.
Random teenager downloads enough music CDs to fill his iPod -> millions in damage representing the sum of the full price of each song
US government downloads software on more devices it's licensed to -> get's a 90% discount in the fine and not even a warning
Apptricity later estimated that 9,000 users were accessing the program, in addition to the 500 that had been paid for.
This is equivalent to Microsoft claiming you pirated windows server, because you only bought 500 CALs, but your organization has 9000 employees.
Through some bit of magic, they say you get this license thingie, that you have to permanently assign to a specific piece of flesh and blood ---- no matter how many computers you have running the software; or how many employees you have on the job at a particular moment -- you don't count those: you count the total number of people your organization hired.
50 million divided by 8500 is close to $6000 per employee.
I would call that predatory + difficult to comply with licensing, not "piracy" --- the folks making out like bandits here is the software company.
I'm sure a fraction of the 50 million could have funded a contractor to build the product, and provide the military the rights to the software --- and unlimited, perpetual licenses.