Rockin' on without Microsoft

Certainly one moral of the story is that even the most conscientious business needs to track and preserve its licenses and copies religiously.

This creates administrative overhead which increases the TCO of commercial software vs. open source alternatives. But even in a technically savvy company, it is easy enough to lose track of license sheets and can be quite difficult to keep track of the details of each license (e.g., "Can I uninstall this software on one machine and legally install it on another machine?" -- the answer is not always "yes").

Management may forbid unauthorized copying, may dictate that any recycled computer be scrubbed and reloaded, but individual employees may not heed this.

It helps to make employees log in as restricted users. But that necessitates having an IT staff because employees can no longer maintain their own computers. Someone else needs to do it for them. This, again, increases the TCO of commercial software.

Shoot, a "disgruntled" could PLANT such violations where before there were none.

Of course. Which is why the assumption of guilt bothers me so much. In the case in question, the employee who reported the company was also the employee who was supposed to keep track of licenses, according to Ball. Maybe he didn't plant the violations but he did seem to suddenly develop a conscious once he was fired. If he knew the company was violating licenses but didn't explain the situation to his boss, then I'm not sure why the company is to blame, unless he has evidence that he brougt these problems to his bosses attention.

One of the problems I have with corporations is that I'd like to see the employees who actually break the law, rather than their employers, held responsible for legal acts. But lawyers don't really want to go after individuals. That's not where the money is. They go for the deepest pockets. I'd really like to know if Ball, the disgruntled employee, or some other employee was responsible for the unlicensed copies of software on those computers.

This is one main reason why Micro$haft sells so many site and enterprise licenses, and businesses re-pay for the same Windows they bought OEM with their hardware.

Yes. But it never seems to bother the defenders of Microsoft when people have to pay twice for software or, as was the case a while back, people had to pay the OEM for a Windows license whether they wanted Windows or not. Just shut up and pay your Microsoft tax.

(e.g., "Can I uninstall this software on one machine and legally install it on another machine?" -- the answer is not always "yes")

In fact this could be ambiguous. Some licenses say the software may be "run" on only one machine, where "run" includes installation, but don't spell out whether this means one machine absolutely or only one at a time.

"No. It's a big business with the potential for evil just as the United States has a big government with a potential for evil but I would not say that all governments are inherently evil or should be broken up. The concentration of wealth and power can occur within a government, individual, or corporation. The concentration of wealth is not, itself, a problem. The concentration of power, however, can be."

Yup. Like I wrote... Big evil corporation. Microsoft must be destroyed. It's owned by capitalists. /sarcasm

We sound like a bunch of DemocRATS.

My interpretation is that some software installed on these older computers was re-installed on the newer computers, without deleting it from the older computers.

Just as a side note, and without trying to get into this arguement, I am willing to bet they took the time to delete all of the personal files created by the "engineers" from those same computers and probably transferred those files to the new machines.

That said, I don't blame Ball at all for doing what he did. From all appearences an ex-employee had a problem with him and the software auditors took advantage of it. One might hope that in the future, the auditors might suffer from a similar fate.

I found this story interestingly ironic;
www.microsoft.com runs Linux? Up to a point ...

Yup. Like I wrote... Big evil corporation. Microsoft must be destroyed. It's owned by capitalists.

This is like the debate between conservatives and liberals on sex and violence on television. Many liberals believe that violence on television can lead children to commit violence yet believe sex on television is harmless. Many conservatives believe that sex on television can lead children to have out-of-wedlock sex yet believe that violence on television is harmless. Logic suggests that either television influences behavior or doesn't. Similarly, either the concentration of great power in the hands of a few is bad or it isn't. If you want to believe that the concentration of great power in the hands of corporate boards is magically going to be less abusive than the concentration of great power in the hands of a government, that's your business. I don't believe it.

We sound like a bunch of DemocRATS.

Democrats like concentration of power in government. I just don't like unchecked concentration of power, period, and see dividing power between government, individuals, and corporations as having the same sort of moderating effect that dividing government power between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches does. The road to liberty lies in checks and balances, not in the concentration of power in government, in individuals, or in corporations. It's all about checks and balances. If anything, that makes me a dreaded "moderate".