Rockin' on without Microsoft

C/Net ^ | 8/20/2003 | David Becker

[HiTech RedNeck]

Penguin Ping

Whether this fellow is telling the truth or not about how he got out of compliance I don't know... but it certainly sounds very plausible -- a copy of an application goes with an old machine to another office that will never use that application, then someone installs the application afresh on the new machine that takes the old one's place. Voila, "piracy."

[Notred]

This article made my day.

Looking forward to the day when the word microsoft is only spoken in hell.

[dfwgator]

RIAA are you listening?

[HiTech RedNeck]

I know I saved $80,000 right away by going to open source.

Which also paid for most of his fines and damages. Cool. Way to go Micro$haft.

[SengirV]

Now he just has to wait for SCO to come after him from not contributing to their extortion fund. Then he'll really get mad.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Is there an open source equivalent to songs? Surely there must be indie artists as good as the few star acts that make the big records.

[HiTech RedNeck]

There is, I hear, a racketeering suit being put together against SCO. Maybe this guy will want to join 'em....

[kezekiel]

But when (the BSA) went to Congress to get their powers, part of what they got is that I automatically have to pay their legal fees from day one.

Is that true? Damn. Another example of our government acting in the corporate rather than public interest. Pathetic.

[stainlessbanner]

ping

[MEGoody]

It is very easy for a busy company to get out of compliance. I would venture to say that, at minimum, 90% of companies are out of compliance. But it's not intentional. These software guys are going to have to quite trying to be so hard-nosed about all this, or they are going to lose to open source.

[HiTech RedNeck]

The big boys sell site and enterprise licenses to obviate such concerns, but they generally are much costlier than buying just the applications that are needed. Protection money.

[Lil'freeper]

Is there an open source equivalent to songs? Surely there must be indie artists as good as the few star acts that make the big records.

Kinda sorta. Check out mp3.com. There are some excellent bands mixed in with a lot of mediocre ones.

[garyhope]

I hope Ball finds the person who dropped the dime on them and kicks his butt. Probably a leftie socialist "Democrat".

[HiTech RedNeck]

That person had an obligation to Ball to tell HIM about it, first.

[lelio]

I kinda sorta agree with you, however its not like people don't know the rules of commercial software: you pay for what you use. Unless there's some (massive) penalty for not paying for it people won't.

Having said that, the BSA has to really balance what it does or else we'll start reading hundreds of Ernie Ball stories.

Plus with a majority of business being ones of less than 50 employees the "Microsoft Tax" is readily seen. Personally I use RH 8.0 at work with Evolution and Open Office and there's nothing that I can't do. Well I can't spread SoBig.

[rdb3]

The Penguin Ping.

Wanna be Penguified? Just holla!

Click and find out!

Got root?

[justlurking]

Probably a leftie socialist "Democrat".

It was probably a disgruntled ex-employee.

[HusbandMan]

Having said that, the BSA has to really balance what it does or else we'll start reading hundreds of Ernie Ball stories.

I guess I need a little more info. I thought the BSA had no legal standing to "raid" a company. I thought that companies had to voluntarily let them in. I say that because we have sent them packing a couple of times.

[lelio]

And I'll have to learn more about the BSA's tactics as I'm not really familiar with them. They've actually come up to you and said "Can we take a look around"?