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December 18, 2003
Life Without Microslosh
There is a really interesting story over at Cnet about a company that went open source. What is interesting is that this was not in response to pricing or quality or geek/nerd advice - it was a counter reaction to the heavy handed tactics of the BSA. The deal was that this company was "invaded" by the BSA (Business Software Alliance) with warrants and inspectors to check for licence compliance. Due to the standard practice of passing around older PC's without completely wiping them and buying new software, they were found to be in breach (estimate 6 machines out of 72 if I can remember my maths). There was lots of publicity and the company ended up settling for large chunks of money. As the boss says:
What I really thought is that you ought to treat people the way you want to be treated. I couldn't treat a customer the way Microsoft dealt with me...I went from being a pro-Microsoft guy to instantly being an anti-Microsoft guy.
End result of the audit debacle:
Humiliated by the experience, Ball told his IT department he wanted Microsoft products out of his business within six months. "I said, 'I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses,'" recalled Ball, who recently addressed the LinuxWorld trade show. "We won't do business with someone who treats us poorly."
They did it and have been successful since. What are you waiting for? An audit from the BSA thugs?
[Ed: Please don't assume that I condone piracy. I think (as does the CEO concerned) that in the event of a violation of licence terms that there should be some way of resolving it equitably - which is not what happened in this case. I also feel that in some cases the licence agreements need to be made more realistic - if I buy software X and install it and then sell that PC (and the software and the disks), that licence should transfer to the new owner - it doesn't in most cases and the guy who bought your PC is now in breach unless he / she scrubs the disk and buys the software all over again....]
Posted by Ozguru at December 18, 2003 07:12 AM
