MS To Virginia Beach: Prove You Own Your Software

Corey Winesett writes: "Virginia Beach, the largest city in VA, has been ordered by Microsoft to audit its software and produce documentation. The city has 5900 employees, 3500 computers and is '99%' Microsoft dependent. The city says that this could cost thousands of dollars and called the letter 'jolting.' Here is a link to the story." From the article, one of the great arguments for software that doesn't need a file cabinet of certificates: "Microsoft, like most software companies, includes contracts with its merchandise explaining that the company reserves the right to ask consumers at any time for proof of purchase and an inventory of what is being used. The rule applies not only to governments and privately owned companies but to individuals." Aren't you glad you use Open Source?

This isn't Microsoft's fault.

This isn't Microsoft's fault... it is the fault of an incompetent IT department.

We made a similar mistake where I work, except with hardware. We decided to lease hardware, went with GE Capital and then got into a bad contract.

On top of that we weren't tracking hardware inventory well and had a lot of stuff which had expired off lease but nobody knew where it was.

As such we were still paying stiff lease costs on old hardware, and were facing some stiff penalties on the contract and had to spend a month scrambling around cleaning up the mess.

It was the same deal, because of some bad decisions and a lack of proper management, we ended up in a bind and had to scramble to save our asses.

Just look at your story. This is what your IT department did which caused the screw up:

- Failed to listen to client needs when choosing an office suite forcing them to install something in addition to what you choose.

- Failed to monitor and lockdown desktops from having unsanctioned/unlicensed software installed.

- Failed to enforce a policy with the support staff about installing unlicensed software.

- Failed to track purchased licenses and other accounting stuff.

These painful lessons wouldn't have been a problem with competent management looking proactively at the problems. Same with our hardware lease problem we had.

Re:I smell money...

I wasn't going to get into this argument either, but what the hell.

What happens, however, if a user turns his PC off with out shutting it down - It happens, especially when they want to get out of the office as fast as possible on a Friday evening. Chances are that Linux will not boot up again,

Yes, this is a serious problem on a server. For a desktop client, the computer is idle most of the time so it has plenty of chance to sync, and the fsck passes 99% of the time. But your support costs will still go up, and your help desk will spend a lot of time saying, "No, don't reboot the machine, no, don't turn it off, yes, you can leave it on all weekend." Anybody that turns off a desktop machine here, regardless of OS, gets a stern warning from management, since the desktop people have a habit of pushing out updates via Tivoli over the weekends or at night.

For the really stupid users, try disconnecting the power button.

Their presentation app is ridiculous and practically unuseable, besides why run KDE when StarOffice insists on having it's own (terribly bloated) desktop environment.

I understand the bloated prsentation manager is off by default in OpenOffice or whatever it's called this week.

Linux has significantly higher support costs.

Higher than Windows 9x, sure. Anybody can come along and screw up the machine. NT doesn't really have this problem unless you give everyone the administrator password (you didn't, did you?)... So where are the support costs? Training? You have that expense with NT anyway. Migration? A one-time expense. Not one to ignore, certainly, but still a one-time expense. Help desk? Field techs? It's not hard to find people who know Linux. Ask around, I hear a lot of them hang out on this place called slashdot. You might even have a few of them among your current staff, and not even know it. And I guarantee they'll all be more competent than your average overpaid MCSE.

Nearly all desktop clients get rebooted daily.

I think I covered this one already.

But, as I've already said, you have to evaluate this kind of thing very carefully. For some organizations, such a migration is worth it. For others, migrating SOME of the desktops to Linux is the best bet. For many, not migrating from Windows is the way to go.
---

Re:Huh? slashdot browser os demographics

Here are some statistics about slashdot readers from a recently slashdotted site.

• 60% Use IE (55% use IE5 or higher)
  
• 38% use Netscape (28% use 4.7 or higher)
  
  
• 78% use Windows (29% win98, 28% nt4.0, 18% win2k)
  
• 12% use linux
  
• 5% use macintosh
  
• 2% use sun

On platforms where IE and netscape are both available, IE is preferred 3:1. Down in the ragged fringes of the outlyers you will find that 1% use Mozilla and 0.3% use BSD.

Possible a test case for UCITA?

IIRC, Virginia was the first state to enact UCITA, which allows such tactics (forcing software owners to prove they have licenses). Could this be a case of MS testing the waters on something large, but not significantly large, to make sure UCITA can hold up?

Huh?

What makes you think the entire Slashdot demographic uses open source software? I'm positive many of the readers don't.

I work for this organization ...

Yes, that's right. I work for the City of Virignia Beach. I have been employed in the current department for about a year and half now, but I did work in the IT department for about 3 or so years. This is not too surprising that this came about, but it was a shock when we found out that we were being audited. The IT staff rarely kept track of who was given what, when. Nobody in the organization was prepared for anything like this. When I worked in the IT department, our standard office app was (and to this day is) Corel Suite 8. We decided to go with Corel over Microsoft because the site license was substantially cheaper than the MOLP for Microsoft Office. Yes, we do have copies of Office 97 and 2K, but each department had to buy a seat licence for every machine that was going to use it. Well, needless to say, some of the IT staffers made copies of the Office97 install CDs and handed them out to the Network Admins of the different departments so that they could install Office when needed. I have seen many Network Admins just go off and install Office as they see fit without buying a license for that PC. Granted, some of the machines had Word 6 or the like on them, so they already had a licence to install Office 97. (The departments were given Office97 upgrade and to officially use it the departments would have to go out and buy Works before they could legally install it.) Now this doesn't discuss other software, such as SQL Server (which we have a few installed) and the OS itself.

Well, needless to say, that being a Network Admin at my new job within this organization has been very stressful. We've had to inventory every machine and send the results back to our IT department so they can compile a list. We've also got to dig out old purchase orders and recipts to prove that we bought said software and how many licenses of it we actually own. After all is said and done, there's no telling what Microsoft will do to us if we don't match what they think we should have. We've got until November 27th to comply with Microsoft. So, until then, that's all that organization as a whole is focused on right now, making everybodies lives "so much fun." Thank you Microsoft.

I just thought that some of you would like to know what is going on from inside. There wasn't a lot of details in the newspaper article, so hopefully this will inform some of you guys. After all of the hell that I'm going through, I just hope someone else isn't this stupid to make a mistake like this.

Taz757

Re:I smell money...

I smell a wish for money, likely a forlorn hope thereof...

This situation is exactly why large companies get quite paranoid about making sure they have license trackers, and policies whereby they can fire you for using "illegitimate" software.

It may sound like a cool idea to shift everything over to Linux; it's not too likely to happen as a result of this sort of thing.

There are always rumors floating around about how "Microsoft did a license audit, and then demanded an share of equity in return for not taking legal action"; obviously not something they could implement with a government agency!

In order for Linux to represent a realistic possibility, some major system integrator like IBM, PWC, EDS, or such needs to provide a "reference" by taking a 20,000 workstation company and "disrupting" them over to use Linux to run desktop applications.

That hasn't happened yet, and despite the fact that availability of stuff like ApplixWare keeps improving, the "churn" of StarOffice versions and of Corel WordPerfect, and the perpetual "coming soon" status of KDE and GNOME's offerings mean that implementing this as a total replacement of MS Office for other than small organizations seems to be some distance away yet.

Whether the options will converge to "being enough" is another question; there's still no reasonable replacement for the ubiquitous MS Access (we have yet to see if would-be alternatives will go anywhere), and the change, when applied throughout a sizable organization, would certainly be disruptive.

Furthermore, if they put in Linux, while this might mean that OS licensing would be free, they'd still be left with the license tracking problem for all sorts of stuff with restrictive "non-free" licenses that would likely need to get installed such as:

• Commercial fax software
• "Office" stuff like WordPerfect, ApplixWare, StarOffice
• Relational databases like Oracle, DB/2, Informix
• DB Front Ends like Corel Paradox, Inprise Kylix
• Web Stuff like Omnis Studio

Seeing as how all this sort of stuff does run on Linux, "switching to Linux" does not forcibly eliminate the "license tracking problem."

Indeed, by providing the implication that the issue goes away, it may even make it less tractable.

well I Live here

I can tell you without even looking that they are not in compliance. The city of Va beach alwasy does things on the cheap.

having recently been job hunting in this area I know that Va beach has been without a director for their computer operations for a while. The reason that this position remains unfilled is that they want someone with a MCSE and a masters in CS to fill the position. The salary? $40K. This area is so poor on pay scale that programmers only make $15 an hour on average. Tech support goes for $10 an hour and the only reason the average is that high is that Gateway and Cannon both have tech Support call centers here.

In this case I have no sympathy for Va Beach. they have sold every IT worker in the area down the river by ROUTINLEY touting how cheap their tech help is to new companies looking at the area. Va beach is reaping what it has sown. They have driven every tech who can get out , out of the area. The ones that are left are bitter and want to leave. The only thing holding me down is I want to finish my degree before I head for the hills.

So don't weep for Va Beach, if they could have gotten their claws into you then they would have happily screwed you over. M$ has done some crappy things but they have never directly and intentionally hurt my bottom line or the way I live.

Re:I smell money...

I may just see if we have any "Intranet" workers and see if a Linux/Netscape build PC crashes as much as a WinNT/Explorer build... Let's face it, Linux hasn't really been tested on the non-tech workforce yet. Users are pretty good at messing up systems. Sometimes they deliberately sabotage them in the hope of getting a new laptop.

Be sure and give them the root password! That way, when they can't mess up the whole system from their user account, they will have a way to "get their important work done."
---

Why fight when you can just switch?

I am an employee of the City of Virginia Beach. While all of our desktop pc's run Microsoft Os's (mostly Win95 and some NT) our official standard office suite is still Corel Office. Some offices have purchased copies of Word or Excel for occasional use. However, 99.9% of users (and all official interdepartmental docs)are WordPerfect or QPro files.

I have a copy of Microsoft Office 2000 Pro installed on my pc that I personally bought and paid for a year or so ago since the IT department doesn't support it they wouldn't allow the purchase of it at that time. I only use MS Office apps on occasions when I really need to open up a file natively to extract data. I much prefer WordPerfect and QuattroPro for daily use. I particularly dislike Word.

As to the speculation as to how much this audit may end up costing us. To my knowledge, so far the 2 largest departments have come up pretty clean with only a few copies of software that can't be properly accounted for. Odds are that most of those cases are just sloppy bookkeeping rather than actual piracy. It will be interesting to see the final results of this audit.

The curious thing is that I just learned a couple of weeks ago that any pc's we purchase in the future will be coming with the MS Office suite already installed rather than the Corel suite. If a department insists on wanting the Corel Suite they'll have to pay extra for that (a mere $38.00). We (the employees) have also just recently been offered the ability to take training classes in MS Office suite apps. We have, however, been able to take Access classes for a couple of years now since many offices have started using that for their simpler database needs. Prior to the switch to Access we were big users of R:base. In fact there are still quite a few people still relying on some R:base applications - not everything has yet been converted to FoxPro, Access, or SQL Server. I keep a copy of R:base 3.1 on hand cuz I can do some things more quickly and easily with it rather than Access. We also use GroupWise - at least for the time being.

Wow. The largest city in the state is still using WordPerfect and R:base. While the vast majority of users would probably find that StarOffice will do everything they want/need the chances of us making a move to Linux/Star Office are about as good as us sticking with the Corel Suite - zero.

My guess is that rather than a disgruntled employee trying to rat us out to MS some marketing or sales droid at MS finally realized that the largest city in the state had still not adopted MS Office as their standard office suite and may be using this audit to "force" the switch from Corel.

Of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Re:Yikes

$100,000 per violation? That's insane. Question: suppose you cripple someone. Will you ever pay $100k in damage? Maybe, but probably not. A piece of crappy software is therefore more important than a life ... great world we're leaving in. Don't forget to hug your lobbyist.

--

Microsoft intentionally *doesn't* copy protect.

Small scale "piracy" is good for their buisness. If a 14 year old who wants to be a sysadmin when he grows up has to pay $500 for NT, it's not going to happen - he'll find Linux and learn that. If he can "pirate" NT, then he'll learn NT, and Microsoft will have other NT admin on the market in a few years.

It's similar with MS Office. Normal home users aren't going to pay $600 for an office licence, but they'll happilly "pirate" it to be using the same thing the people they know are. This helps Microsoft by giving them another Office user.

Small scale "piracy" helps even more, if Microsoft is known to crack down on large scale "piracy". If a company's employies are all experianced in NT/Office, the company will be forced to buy licences for these products. And licences to the yearly upgrades to these products. And licences to other MS products, because only MS products work well with MS products.

If Joey the 14 year old sysadmin-to-be pirates NT, learns it, and doesn't find out about alternitives, (Or absorbs the MS-Propaganda at 14, and dismisses the alternitives) think how many potential licenses for Microsoft products he will cause to be purchased once he gets his MSCE and a job.

If Joey can't "pirate" NT, or even has trouble "pirating" it because of copy protection, Microsoft may well get NO licences.

Small scale "piracy" acceptance, and no copy protection, is an obvious win for Microsoft. Suing buisness that "pirate" Microsoft software just reinforces the win condition.

I smell money...

...and not for M$. It's disruptive things like this that make IT departments stop and think seriously about their investment in Microsoft products.

I know that if the company I work for ever got audited, all hell would break loose. The licenses for each copy of NT Workstation 4.0 were left with the individual workstations, where they, uh, tend to disappear for some reason. And that doesn't even count Office, which every workstation has, but I've never seen a license for.

The question of the day is, would it cost more to pay M$ for the unaccounted-for pieces of software, or to switch to Linux? You can bet your a$$ that somebody in Virginia Beach is thinking hard about that very question right now.

And Virginia Beach is not all that far from Research Triangle Park [redhat.com]...
---

What if?

Hypothetical situation: If the City did absolutely nothing, and did not respond, wouldn't it be up to Microsoft to prove that the City held unlicensed copies of the software? Rather than the city having to cease all day to day operations in order to audit and discover a handful of "illegal" copies of Word, or whatever? But I suppose that MS would chase it to the death, rather than give up. I hate EULAs doing this kind of thing.

This kind of thing makes me grumpy. All the worse, because:

``It's the world we live in,'' Sullivan said. ``Microsoft has every right to ask us for the information.''

Ugh.

--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me

Moral of the story

If you're going to use warez, use them exclusivly (so the vendor has no contract allowing him to ask you) ...

Re:I smell money...

You make some very valid points. Although:

the fsck passes 99% of the time

Have you had 100 unclean shutdowns? I've had a few due to power outages, Laptop batteries expiring, kids unplugging the wrong box to plug something else in and so on, 99% is a little high in my experience. Hell, I've had to learn to copy superblock backups.
At work most of our users have Laptops and some of them do indeed run Linux as well, although officially unsupported by IT, I still get questions from such users about how to retrieve their system, because it won't boot.

If you run remote admin stuff then leaving the PCs on over weekends can make uptime a client issue. I wasn't going to mention this before as I thought some fanatic zealot would try to behead me for saying it - 78 days uptime on a box is not a big deal, regardless of the Operating System. I was applying a service pack to one of our Exchange servers (NT4 Dell PE4300) to find that it had been up for 120 days recently. I noted this fact because I had previously heard that NT had a problem staying up for more than 55 days. I had even heard that it was impossible for an NT box to last longer than this. Before I had applied the service pack it was on service pack 4.

I only recently found out how to check the uptime on an NT box:

Bring up task manager and check the number of hours in the "System Idle" process. If you have some NT servers around the place check their uptimes, do a File --> Run --> calc.exe and divide the number by 24.

I think people may be pleasantly surprised by NT, or... they're just not very good at building a stable box. It they really get regular blue screens from NT, chances are that it's not correctly configured or you have a hardware problem.

These problems are difficult to troubleshoot as NT provides no sure fire way of finding out what is wrong. Make sure you have the correct drivers, have a box that is set up correctly etc... Easiest way is use a manufacturer who provides a good OEM installation process for NT.

---

Receipts?

I wonder if they would accept simple receipts of the machines they purchased, if in fact those machines came preinstalled with the software they are currently using (Win98/NT/Office/etc).

For example, I'm not sure where my Win98 license is, but it came preinstalled on my laptop, purchased from HP. Because you CAN'T buy this particular HP laptop WITHOUT Win98, shouldn't that be enough proof?

Obviously we don't know where this city bought their systems from - presumably if they got Dell systems with MS stuff preinstalled, that should prove enough licensing. I'm also pretty sure that presumption would be wrong. :)

MS just seems insidious to me regarding licensing in general. If they were REALLY concerned about piracy, wouldn't they invest in some form of copy protection? I can remember copy protection back in the days of the Apple II and C64 - (Mr Nibble, anyone?). Making unauthorized copies back then, you at least had to make *some* effort!

Re:Yowch.

You are prsumed to own the chairs by virtue of possession. It would be up to anyone disputing such ownership to bear the burden of proof.

Unfortunately, it is a know fact that you do NOT own your MS software.

Like it or not, the two situations are entirely different.

Great Ad For Open Software

Some years ago, I saw the CEO of a medium sized corporation blanch when the contractor told him to write a check to M$HAFT for $120K+...200+ users, 8 NT servers (fairly loaded).

This was a upgrade after about three years of the previous M$ stuff, which had cost them $80K.

Now, imagine what happens when M$ moves forward with their goals of application rentals and the elimination of CDs (the elimination of CDs means only channel resellers have OS cds, you only get an OS with a complete system, and a replacement requires the return of the HD).

Many companies/government orgs are not willing (or legally able) to connect their machines to the internet just to have them boot or run apps. Nor are they willing/able to send used hard drives to anyone (sensitive data).

This gives these end users two options : buy a new machine when the hard drive fails (keeping a inventory of spares) or use free software. Note also that the license starts to apply to the physical box, not the bits of the harddrive. For the truly anal, who keep software in libraries, that's quite a bit of shelf space!

I've seen EULAs before that allow the software company itself to enter and audit the suspect workplace. Wonder what the CIA or NSA would think of that scenario, particularly if a lot of M$ stock or management ends up moving overseas.

What would take precedence? A court order for M$ to enter a secure/secret facility, possibly with a crew of H1B/foreign nationals, or the secret facilities' mission to protect data? Well, since most of those facilities are authorized to use deadly force, the answer is obvious...unless M$ forms a 'leet commando team or something.

UCTIA

Sullivan said it is the first time Microsoft has asked the Beach to account for its software. In the past year, Microsoft has targeted Virginia in its software inquiries. Last year, the company sued two retailers in Northern Virginia and two more in West Virginia for software piracy.

Just an observation. Virginia passed the UCTIA back in Febuary. Looks like they're eating their own dogfood now.

--Bob

Re:I smell money...

It wouldn't surprise me if Micro$~01 has sent that letter to every government department in the US. It's a good way to get back at them.

Microsoft are actually quite lax with their software licensing, take NT server, install and enter "010-0123456" bingo - you're through. Same key works for SQL Server.
I'm waiting for the day where they hit every company & institution for their due.

I guess only open-source could hit back at this, but in my opinion Linux is just not ready for the desktop and UNIX, in general, seems to have always been a server OS or a development OS, not a PC OS.

---

How long can such behaviour last.

Something that I've been thinking over the last while, was how much 'efficiency' can we be getting out of computer systems. And in a society so driven by economics as ours, how long can innefficiencies be allowed to last? That being said, isn't microsoft cutting off its own ear to spite its face?

Lets put this into perspective. Lets look a bit at the large scale, macroscopic level, not the microcosm of what seems to be the short term benefits of person a vs. person b. but the long term scale of movements and currents of society. Computers are supposed to give us more efficient means of managing our information, and so in turn they are supposed to yield greater efficiency and productivity in organizations. That's the theory, most of us never bother to question it, but its still just a theory. Microsoft achieved its power, wealth and success because little billy g once had the good insight to see something of the potential computers would have as a consumeable item. This being said, it would be in the best interests of any computer company to enhance the efficiency that computers bring, because this not only means a good product for the company in terms of short term goals, but a long term advantage that the "ecological niche" of that company - ie. the overall position of computers in society - benefits that company.

Now if microsoft is working to make computers less productive, less efficient to the users of those computers, aren't they just working to deteriorate their own market? These forces need not even be in the computers themselves, but all the implementation and administrative costs associated with using the computers. The more they make it inefficient to use their own products - the more they will scare away their own business.

Well, go to it, is all I can say, if that's the case, I love to see M$ digging its own grave.

Re:What if?

IANAL, but I was under the impression that UCITA, which Virginia has enthusiastically signed up to, makes the clauses of every software licence enforcable and legal. Where UCITA isn't signed up to, you have the legal right to use software without agreeing to its licence (obviously, normal rules about fair use and copyright apply), but in Virginia that's not the case.

Which in my view is hilarious. Virginia's government has signed up to UCITA, and now it's government bodies there being stiched up. Very appropriate. Hopefully if local government is brought to a halt often enough, those who insisted on pushing it through will have cause to rethink.
--

doesn't the UCITA to do this remotely?

I thought one of the most disturbing features of the UCITA was they they could just do this remotely. They could just kill all their licences with a click of a button on their side. Saying that VA Beach was in a license violation, and pulling their licenses until they could validate everything.

The only thing VA Beach would get is a letter, and the fact that none of their computers would boot because Microsoft would have remotely pulled all their licenses in the wee hours of the morning.

Wait until all this really goes in to effect, and some local gov't is shut down by Microsoft. Or what about a university? or even one of Microsoft's competitors. Some company pissing Microsoft off? Teach them a lesson they won't forget by remotely pulling all their Windows liceneses. That kind of power honesly makes Bill Gates one of the most powerful people in the world? How many other companies could just go in and gind the US gov't to a halt on day-to-day operations?

Could FSF/Gnu do this, too?

Some posters have been saying "Big Deal, RMS would do this in a second if he could".

Uh, the GPL says you can make as many copies as you want, and share them with your friends, associates, whatevuh.

If it was just one post, I'd figure it was a troll, but with several, I figure it must be people who don't know better.

Remember, these are end users, not developers. They probably have no issues with non-release of mixed code.

Facts of Life

Truth is, Microsoft has every right to do such an audit. Even MS is painfully aware how much their software is pirated every day, and especially larger companies or organizations are prone to buy, say, a 1000-station license when they really have over 5000 stations. Microsoft is a business, they are out to make money, and if something is denying them legitimately of their money, then power to them for enforcing their own licenses!

The only reason such a big fuss is being made is because it's Microsoft. If it were any other company, like Corel or a smaller developer, this would never had made any news. People are going to try and use this as fuel to attack Microsoft because they're the "big bad evil empire out to enslave us all." They're just a business, simply one that is highly effective.
--
- Chris
- http://nighthawk.livejournal.com

Taxpayers funding M$ one more time?

So not only does tax money got to buy the junk in the first place, now the state has to spend lots of time (= tax money) to protect M$ from pirate sales? This is an unfair advantage to M$ that their competitors don't have and it needs to be brought to the attention of every city atty in the country.

Aren't you glad you use open source?

Actually I don't use open source. I use Winword, Excel, IE, etc. Now before you get your panties in a knot, it's time that the open source community stop defining itself by what it is not. Most of you read the hoax letter from "Bill Gates." The letter expressed well how defining yourself by who you are not is the wrong way to go.

In addition, since when is Slashdot no longer "News for Nerds, Stuff that matters"? Slashdot is about posting news articles and letting the users make the inflamatory comments (such as this one) about them. The users provide the commentary, not the front-page posters.

The fact that the timothy was willing to overlook the objective details of the story in order to get in a jab at M$, bodes ill for /. It is well within Microsoft's rights to demand an audit. It is Virginia Beach's responsibility to keep track of their software. "We have no sense of where we're going to come out" Tough cookies for them. I'm glad that the city has learned its lesson and is now actually tracking what they buy.
Oh what a sad abuse of monopoly power when Microsoft can actually check to make sure their software is being paid for by groups!

Re:What if?

Hypothetical situation: If the City did absolutely nothing, and did not respond, wouldn't it be up to Microsoft to prove that the City held unlicensed copies of the software?

NOPE! Failing to respond to the audit request is itself a violation of the EULA. MS would just pursue that and declare all of the licenses invalid. That's what happens when you sign a deal with the devil.

This is a perfect example of the 'hidden' compliance costs of proprietary software. I'll bet that when they purchased the software, they didn't figure in the cost of doing the audit. The article doesn't specify if the 50 employees are dedicated solely to the audit, or if they are spending only part time on it, but that adds up fast either way. Based on their getting a one month extension and the suspension of new purchases, I'm guessing that they're spending a good percentage of their time on this.

There is an answer!

The problem here is that plaintiffs in Copyright cases have a lot of clout to demand something more than a fair settlement, particularly in clear-cut cases -- the plaintiff invariably is entitled to an award of attorney fees.

I wonder if it is ever useful or interesting to comply with these off-the-wall demands for audits. Microsoft/BSA is simply attempting to obtain non-trade-secret free discovery, which they will use before or during any litigation to follow. At the end of the day, even those companies that comply seem to get no better treatment than those that opt to defend. Indeed, they have given up quite a bit. It is much, much easier for a plaintiff to make litigation decisions when he knows the value of the case before even beginning discovery.

On the other hand, let's get this straight. If you are using ersatz software without permission, you are, and in my view should be, liable. It is a good idea to audit your own software use, and to stay compliant. Period. The best defense is no infringement at all. Let me say that again.

The best defense is not to infringe.

If you do infringe, you should expect to pay the price. The question is, at the end of the day, what price should be paid? Microsoft/BSA lawyers love to throw their weight around in clear infringement/unauthorized use cases, demanding more than a reasonable fee for the infringement, claiming that it will cost the defendant so much to get a "reasonable verdict" that they might as well pay the extortion fee. This is because a prevailing plaintiff in a Copyright action is often awarded not only the damages, but also the cost of attorney fees.

There is an answer, however. An Eleventh Circuit case not too long ago, Jordan v. Time, Inc. [emory.edu] held that because of a technicality in the Copyright Act, a defendant who makes a timely, formal "offer of judgment" under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure can turn the attorney-fee tables when the plaintiff does not collect an award greater than the offer.

Making an offer in this fashion shifts the risk to the Plaintiff, since going to trial may result in a net award of attorney fees to the Defendant! One strategy to consider (the circumstances are different in EVERY case -- make these decisions only with advice of counsel) is to do your own due diligence with a lawyer, make an offer in writing, without agreeing to the audit. If it is rejected with a threat to sue, file your own declaratory judgment action with an offer of judgment attached. Now, they get to decide whether to risk paying YOUR legal fees prior to discovery.

Now, do not try this at home. A Copyright case is a tremendously complex cause of action, and zillions of subtle facts can swing results entirely. You should rely on the advice of counsel you have retained before taking any action in any case -- including a decision whether or not to comply with a demand for an audit.

But do make sure your lawyer knows about (and how to effectively use) the Jordan case to good advantage. :-)

Total Cost of Ownership...

One of the constant battlecries coming out of Redmond is that the total cost of ownership (TCO) for Microsoft products is lower than with *nix. This little stunt by Microsoft really helps drive this point home. 5 tech staffers a full month to do all the basic research, plus new computer requests being delayed. All because Microsoft *THINKS* there *MIGHT* be an invalid license somewhere in the chain? Does this sound like lower TCO to you???? If Microsoft can demand you produce documentation to support your claim of proper licensing, it sounds like they are raising the TCO intentionally.

Re:Facts of Life

Truth is, Microsoft has every right to do such an audit. Even MS is painfully aware how much their software is pirated every day, and especially larger companies or organizations are prone to buy, say, a 1000-station license when they really have over 5000 stations. Microsoft is a business, they are out to make money, and if something is denying them legitimately of their money, then power to them for enforcing their own licenses!

So can the FSF go to MS and say "Show us your source code so that we can audit it and determine whether or not you're using GPL software in violation of our licensing agreement"?

FSF may not be out to make money, but that's entirely beside the point. The GPL is just as valid and legally binding as any MS license, and if anyone is violating the GPL, then power to the FSF for enforcing that license.

Right?

Way To Go!

It's nice to see private industry harassing government over some stupid paperwork for a change. If Bush gets elected next Tuesday, maybe Janet Reno can come work for Bill Gates.

So, how do you like it, government? Now you know how we feel when you get on our backs for earning money that we thought was ours, but it turned out you had a claim on it just because we couldn't present you with some stupid paperwork.

Dear Slashdot

It has come to our attention that Slashdot has not registered licenses for any Microsoft products. We will be conducting an audit during December of your premises and equipment. No preparation is necessary, we will begin by reinstalling Windows 2000 on desktop machines and Windows NT on servers to ensure proper functioning of our audit tools.

Eleventh Amendment to the Rescue!

Ah, the City, unlike we mere mortals, may well be immune from this claim. In a fascinating (to IP lawyers, anyway) case [cornell.edu] last year, the Supreme Court held that the Congress does not have the power to create a cause of action for patent-holders against the States (and their agencies), notwithstanding the provisions of Article I, Section 8.

States get to claim sovereign immunity. Since the Copyright Act is rooted in the same clause as the PAtent Act, perhaps the city can likewise claim sovereign immunity?

Yet one more hidden cost of M$

The price of such things is one of the many hidden costs of M$ software. Even if everything is above board and legal, the price you pay to have a staff member keep a constant catalog of liccenses as folks come and go in any organization is non trivial. The loaded cost of an individual is roughly 2x to 3x their salary. The cost of an audit is on top of such a person. I really wish more folks have read the Aesop's fable of the man the horse and the wolf. They might realize what M$ is about. Diddiap dobbin...

Baltimore too

Well, the M$ hit squad has already sent my company a letter wanting to come in and check our computers. This letter was followed by a letter from microsoft. I work for a small consulting company and all the programming, almost always, is done at the client site. So out of the couple machines and the laptop my boss uses there are not that many machines.

The thing that scares me most about this is that if we let them come in, which at the moment is the last option on the list. what else will they see? As far as windows goes the machines there were preloaded with winblows and are completely leagal, but what if they see the large mass of mp3's on the machines? Or what type of other info will they be looking for while they are there. I suspect they would look for employee and client information to make sure they don't miss anyone.

I guess all the leagal battles with the govt has cause bill to feel his profits are not as high as he wants and figures he can rake more money in this way.

Our options at this moment are:
1) have our lawyer send a "go screw yourself" letter to M$'s hit squad.
2) put linux on all the machines, and let them come in (this is my favorite)
3) see if we can find more companies in the area and start a class action suit against them.

I'm glad this hit /. since I'm very curious about what others people here think about it and what ideas you have. Maybe someone has some better leagal info on what can be done.

M$ student Tax at Univ of Maryland

Given that they have run this story, I doubt that /. will run a story that I submitted at about the same time. The University of Maryland at Diamondback is going to try and tax every student to have access to M$ products and updates. Read about it here [diamondbackonline.com] This is an effort to make sure that there is compliance with M$ liscensing. No matter if you don't even have a computer, you are presumed guilty of infringement and must pay up. Linux or not, you gotta send money to unka Bill... Somehow I think that this is beyond the pale...

010-0123456

We tried having the NT-SysAdmins enter that somehow valid license key "010-0123456", but they just got confused and frustrated and wound up running away from the servers at this step into a dark corner where they'd typically be found scarfing down bananas at an unbelievable rate.

Since we switched to using 111-1111111 (which also works just as well), the NT admins have been much happier, need less counseling, and the cages need to be cleaned less often.

Re:More Anti-UCITA Pabulum

UCITA basically gives strength to click through licenses. What if, in every WinXX OS cd license, there was a phrase, "By agreeing to this license, Microsoft may demand that you prove your ownership of this license at any time at your expense." Is there any fair comparison to non-software items whereby the *company* can demand to prove ownership? (The police can, but they have been given that responsibility). This gives software makers law-enforcement powers, which they should not even begin to think they have.

Re:Actually its the city's problem

a supported copy of Windows 2000

Have you ever tried to get support from Microsoft? They make you call long distance to Redmond to speak to underpaid help desk staff they pulled off the streets of Seattle. (Well, actually, from the area's numerous temp agencies, but there's not much difference.)

If you want to speak to someone who knows what they're doing, you have to pay per incident, or have a prepaid contract which gets you X number of incidents per time period.

Don't believe me? Read it for yourself. [microsoft.com] And good luck getting an answer out of M$. At least with Linux I can find the answer to just about anything in ten minutes or less, without spending a dime.
---

Re:I smell money...

Windows 95 can recover quite easily from bad shutdowns, Linux can't...

I have been using both systems since 1995, and it's the first time I hear this. In my experience, it's perfectly OK to turn the PC off anytime with both systems. Both will run a disk check the next time the PC is powered up, and fix some small errors. The only difference is that Windows 95 will ask you some questions, while Linux fixes everything automatically.

Uptime is not a desktop client feature

It is for me. I hate the time lost resetting the machine, and waiting for the boot process, and telling it to fix the directory, and telling it, no, I DON'T want to be able to recover whatever garbage the scandisk fixed, etc, everytime when I get a Blue Screen Of Death.