Software Audits: How High-Tech Software Vendors Play Hardball (infoworld.com) 162
snydeq writes: InfoWorld's Dan Tynan offers an inside look at how high-tech software vendors such as Adobe, Oracle, and IBM play hardball over software licensing, pushing customers to "true up" to the tune of billions of dollars per year -- and using the threat of audits as a sales tool to close lucrative deals. "When it comes to software audits, the code of omerta prevails," Tynan writes. "It's not a question of whether your organizations' software licenses will get audited. It's only a question of when, how often, and how painful the audits will be. The shakedown is such a sure thing that nearly every customer we contacted asked us to keep their names out of this story, lest it make their employers a target for future audits."
After Microsoft forced us to buy... (Score:3, Informative)
several times as many CALs as have employees, we're moving what we can to Linux.
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In the Microsoft licensing scheme you have to pay both device CAL's and user CAL's. So for each device you buy a device CAL and per user you pay for a user CAL. Server's also have to pay per processor (which is a toss-up between physical processor, core and thread depending on product and vendor or a combination of them).
Re:After Microsoft forced us to buy... (Score:5, Funny)
In the Microsoft licensing scheme you have to pay both device CAL's and user CAL's. So for each device you buy a device CAL and per user you pay for a user CAL. Server's also have to pay per processor (which is a toss-up between physical processor, core and thread depending on product and vendor or a combination of them).
I'm glad that Microsoft simplified their licensing at last.
Re:After Microsoft forced us to buy... (Score:4, Informative)
Everything with separate user and device CALS I've ever seen lets you choose whether to buy a user CAL or a device CAL.
Some things require you to license only one way or the other. For an RDS service you can't mix user CALs and device CALs. It's one or the other, so you have to determine which is cheaper overall.
For server software like SQL, it was per socket for ages. Recently they started charging per core, and a typical license allows you to run on 2 cores, so you need to buy packs of licenses covering all the cores you need to run on.
For Windows Server itself, you've got a similar situation as above, but you get to run 1 physical and 2 virtual instances per licensed copy of Windows Server. I believe you have to use their visualization shit, but I'm not sure if virtual instances have to run in the physical instance or not. We use VMware and our Windows servers are virtual already, with virtual CPU allocations mapping to physical CPUs. We're already virtualized, so I see no need in running additional virtualization layers.
Making sense of MS's licensing schemes is a nightmare, especially when they keep changing them. Their sales people don't know what the licenses actually grant you, can't tell you what you need, and have no chance in hell of ever linking you to a place where you can buy a license that matches the name of what they said you should buy. The whole software industry is like this though. I can't buy a software license for an Adobe product and get an actual description of what I'm buying. Buying Acrobat DC got me Acrobat 2016, and I have no clue what type of license it actually is. It installed though, and I gave them money. If they want to audit anything they can read the email logs between myself and their own sales people.
Re: After Microsoft forced us to buy... (Score:2, Informative)
You're wrong. You do not need both user and device CALs for the same product, except in very weird/niche scenarios. If you were audited, and this was what you were told, you should take legal action against the auditing company (not Microsoft) as they probably gave you incorrect information.
Do bear in mind that it is your responsibility to know the licensing terms and argue your side. The auditing company can often be clueless, or have an incentive to rip you off.
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I think that was what this article is all about. It's cheaper to pay the licensing than to pay a lawyer in a suit. It's outside of the range of small claims so it's not like it's a simple case, this will be 3-5y in jury at least.
Microsoft has forced people to pay first user CAL's then later device CAL's and I've seen companies forced to pay per processor AND then later user CAL's AND to connect eg. SharePoint to SQL Server, a connector license. But hey, it's Microsoft, sue them and many (eg. Microsoft Partn
Open source is the solution (Score:3, Insightful)
The only audits of open source software are to remove bugs. Ditch proprietary software and this isn't an issue.
Freedom, not Price (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why I only use FLOSS software in my business, and why I don't care which Free/Libre/Open license it is.
Freedom means some external entity can't interfere or try to pull the rug out. I have what I have, I know what it is, and nothing will change unless I accept change.
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This is why I only use FLOSS software in my business, and why I don't care which Free/Libre/Open license it is.
What do you use for accounting/bookkeepping/taxes?
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[same as before computers but]... on a computer.
They don't have a special doohickey that enables those things. Though spreadsheets are pretty awesome compared to a ledger and a calculator.
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[same as before computers but]... on a computer.
Using a spreadsheet may be okay if you are a one person business or a Mom & Pop shop. We use Quickbooks, and it pays for itself with just the end-of-month bank reconciliation (a few seconds with the software, half a day for a human). Other than accounting and tax software which runs on a single dedicated Windows box, we are completely FLOSS. We tried GnuCash, but it is missing many crucial features, and even worse, the developers consider it "done" and are not open to suggestions for improvement. Pl
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forking gnucash is silly, that is personal budget software, not resource management.
There are indeed other ways of doing things than buying proprietary software licenses. This idea that we're crippled is absurd.
If your software license works for you, nobody is asking you to switch.
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"Using a spreadsheet may be okay if you are a one person business or a Mom & Pop shop."
I did the accounting for a club with about 25 members for a couple of years. In a spreadsheet. Every year when I needed to close the books, I found myself sitting behind the screen until 3am because the numbers were not consistent, due to spreadsheet errors (inserted row that messed up cell ranges in formulas) and all the special cases of bills that were paid in a different year than the invoice date.
I shudder if I th
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I own and operate a small business and I do my accounting with the Libreoffice spreadsheet. I print the spreadsheets out at the end of each year and give them to my accountant.
Nothing much to it, really.
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Sorry to reply twice, but I wanted to tell a funny short story about my taxes this year.
I decided to use one of the "free" options other than the fillable forms... big mistake! I went through their whole step by baby-step process, in the end provided the exact same information as the real form, in the same order, was asked a question in every place where the instructions instruct me to do one thing or another, and at the very end right before submitting it they pissed me off so bad with their bait-and-switc
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Keeping track of licenses is dead easy anyway.
Found the guy who's never dealt with a Microsoft Server License.
Re:Freedom, not Price (Score:5, Insightful)
You've obviously never tried to actually be compliant. When MS itself cannot tell you how many of what license you need and changes it's mind regularly, it is literally impossible to be certain of compliance (because they're not) short of buying an unlimited site license for everything.
Re:Freedom, not Price (Score:5, Insightful)
Only works if you don't require any specialty software whatsoever, which is practically nobody. Anything specialized, like CAD tools, EDA tools,[blah blah blah]
Hilarious, some of the most important software I use in my work is the EDA and CAD tools.
What makes you think that people with software freedom don't have software? What makes you think that proprietary software gives you access to something nobody else does?
"Specialized vertical market applications" like Tow Truck 2000, and shit. You don't have to buy that stuff to work in those industries. Software isn't Harry Potter magic spells, that proprietary software isn't a special sauce that enables work in those industries; it is just one way to organize your workflow.
The examples where you really need special software are rare; they certainly don't include EDA or CAD. But if I wanted to be in the business of selling weather forecasts, I'd need specific software because humans can't predict the weather and there are very few engineers working in that field. Anything engineering-related, of course, has FLOSS alternatives already, and generally can be done without even using computers.
Like in the 90s when people told us we "had to" have Microsoft Office, and kept repeating it even after we pointed out that we use something else... successfully. Or when people insist you "have to" use an IDE to write code, because more people use them than don't.
If I was in a field where everybody is totally locked in to proprietary crap software in the whole "specialized vertical market," then I'd be in the perfect position to totally disrupt that market by offering a FLOSS alternative. That is the business reality in the real world; choices exist.
People in #nesdev on EFnet dislike KiCad (Score:2)
The examples where you really need special software are rare; they certainly don't include EDA or CAD.
The people I talk to online tell me KiCad is crap compared to even Eagle.
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The examples where you really need special software are rare; they certainly don't include EDA or CAD.
The people I talk to online tell me KiCad is crap compared to even Eagle.
KiCad is crap. I use the Geda toolchain (note: not a single package, a *toolchain*) and that works well enough for me - has more features that I need than Eagle. It does miss one piece of functionality I would like (although, maybe that is now fixed: it's been years since I used 'em).
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The people I talk to online tell me KiCad is crap compared to even Eagle.
Funnily enough the people I talk to online tell me the opposite. That includes the exchange between me and my board house, which went something like:"
"How do I get you to make those slots plated"
"er, are you using eagle?"
"yeah..."
"Put it in as chain drilling of plated through holes, and I'll fix it up before sending it to production. But if you want a lot, you should consider switching to KiCad. It's better anyway. Have you seen the pu
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At this juncture I would point out that Eagle is good enough for the mind blowingly impressive amplifiers used in LIGO. That is they have linearity and noise figures several orders of magnitude better than anything you can buy commercially. (They where designed and built in the Physics department where I work and the workshop uses Eagle for all it's EDA work).
The point being that Eagle is clearly good enough for cutting edge EDA work. Personally I dropped Eagle for KiCad a while back for my hobby work as Ki
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I have NEVER found a FLOSS video production suite that works as well or as smoothly as Adobe's, and I've tried the half-dozen or so most-recommended packages listed on the forums.
There's much to complain about Adobe, and proprietary software in general, but calling it "just one way to organise your workflow" is simplistic. Film-making is pricey enough (and not rare), why would professional production companies spend even more $$$ on software like this unless it saves them money in the end?
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Right, if you read the complaints carefully, they come down to words like "smoothly."
Don't know, don't care. It is probably true. My software has a square jaw and a slight speech impediment. It doesn't bother me.
Re:Freedom, not Price (Score:5, Interesting)
Or when people insist you "have to" use an IDE to write code, because more people use them than don't.
My problem with this is when the IDEs become obsolete. I had a project I built for OSX. I didn't touch it for a few years, then came back, and XCode was unable to open it anymore.
I had another project from the same era built with a Makefile. The same makefile still works today. So yeah, I'll be putting in extra effort to avoid IDEs that depend on proprietary file formats in the future.
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"What makes you think that proprietary software gives you access to something nobody else does?"
At the engineering company where I work, there are on the order of 10^3 engineers that need to do CAD design on different parts of the same product, recursively, in parallel, with tight version control, and multiple people doing sign-offs before the part goes in production. By 'recursively', I mean that one person is doing the layout of a big assembly that includes smaller components that are still being designed
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blah blah blah "doubt."
That's all you said.
I personally have no doubt that the engineers, including ones working in large teams, who use open source EDA tools are not merely country bumpkins who are unable to come up with a work flow. Which is what you seem to imply.
I also have no doubt that whatever proprietary work flow you're locked into would cause difficultly to change. Other ways of doing things would be different, and you're already invested in the way you are already doing things. But that is circul
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The examples where you really need special software are rare; they certainly don't include EDA or CAD.
EE here. Show me a FLOSS app for schematic capture and PCB layout that is adequate for moderately complex boards. KiCad certainly isn't. Don't get me wrong, it's good for doing Arduino shields and maybe the odd four layer board, but compared to even Altium or Eagle it's severely lacking when you need to start doing complex boards with high speed digital on multiple layers, or complex RF, or massive auto-routed FPGA boards etc. And that's not even mentioning the really high end apps.
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Use google, find the one that EE's are using, and then you'll be ready to talk about it.
There is one. Or is this a no-true-Scotsman with moving goalposts where no actual board will be complex enough for you?
We design our boards, and they come back from the fab, same as with what you use. Your proprietary software is not a magic spell that enables you to do things that FLOSS users aren't doing. Everybody is doing the same things, with different tools. KiCad is not the main professional tool in use, it is the
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What a load of gas-lighting horseshit. The tool you allude to doesn't exist.
I wasn't arguing that proprietary software is magic either. That's a straw man. I was simply pointing out that nothing equivalent exists as FLOSS. Probably due to the decades of development that have gone into even mid range tools like Altium and Cadstar, to say nothing of the high end stuff. Apparently there just aren't enough people working FLOSS implementations.
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Right, the tools I use don't exist, because you don't know about them!
Magical thinking at a whole new level.
You really underscore why I'm not interested in playing school-marm on command for you; you're not interested in the subject, and you've already decided that proprietary software is a magic spell.
There is a whole world of no-true-scotsman behind the word "equivalent" as you use it above. In the same way, proprietary software doesn't offer any equivalent to any of the open source tools.
Even Photoshop c
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I'm sorry - which OSS project intefaces seamlessly with Revit so that I can deal with three separate A/E offices (architect, electrical, mechanical) working simultaneously on the same project for a $10M project delivery in a month?
Yeah, didn't think so.
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Revit is proprietary, right? If you're interested in the FLOSS answer, it is don't give up your freedom in the first place; use a complete stack that respects your freedom.
If you already have a specific contract (or your employer does) that forces you to use proprietary software, and you're OK with that, then my advice is just use whatever is normal for you.
If you come to a place where you want to avoid the pains and restrictions and liabilities of that way of doing things, then change completely to freedom
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That's why open-source software works better than trying to just roll your own internal crap. With FOSS, multiple companies who need the same thing can work together and pool their limited resources to produce something which works well for them. That's kinda the whole point to it all. Buying proprietary software is nothing more than outsourcing: instead of making your own tool, you're getting an outside vendor to do it for you. They profit because they sell the same tool to a bunch of customers. But t
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Anything specialized, like CAD tools, EDA tools, specialized vertical market applications, etc. and you're back to keeping track of licenses.
Keeping track of licenses is dead easy anyway. Any organization that can't keep track of its software licenses is probably not competent enough to keep track of its customer invoicing, tax obligations, or payroll either.
EDA tools? Last I checked gEDA was free and actually nice and functional. And those tools will likely not be used by most office drones.
Even if you can't get rid of all the proprietary crap from vendors that have your organization by the short and curlies, you can minimize the problem and make audits much less lengthy and confusing. ALL organizations that depend on 100% proprietary software have something somewhere they slipped up on. Reduce the dependence, reduce the risk of being exploited and screwed
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What kind of moron would run EDA software on a tablet?
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No one I can think of, was just stating that my biggest issue with FOSS software right now is crappy support for hardware that is very commonplace now.
On the other hand, EDA software on a hi-rez large screen tablet with an active stylus, a real CPU and 8GB+ RAM might actually be a pretty interesting tool in some situations.
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I can't imagine what situations those would be. A 24" or 30" tablet would be completely infeasible to carry around. And using a screen less than 24" at a bare minimum for work like that makes no sense at all.
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Yeah, and people used to drive around in cars with 40HP with no seat belts and hand-crank starters too. That doesn't mean anyone sane would want to go back to that.
Ok, so how should it work? (Score:5, Interesting)
Software is immensely expensive to create. The bigger, real world systems actually in use cost a fortune in real money to create because the bigger and more complex they get, the more people are needed to try to increase productivity by increasingly small percentages.
The money has to come from somewhere. If companies can't pay their programmers, the software stops being made. The open source model is an alternative in SOME cases - but not all.
Software is pathetically easy to steal. Somehow the companies making the software need to get paid. Going after individual thieves is a waste of time, but targeting corporations with deep pockets makes perfect sense.
Sue Joe Smoe for ripping off Microsoft Office, and you won't recover enough to pay your lawyers and the fees to file the lawsuit. Sue Exxon because they paid for 1000 copies of Office but used 10,000, and they will be able to pay any court judgement. You can ask the courts for your legal fees, the cost of the software they stole, and compensation for your trouble.
Not see what is unfair or unjust about this. The "hardball" tactic described here is to find companies that are stealing software, and offer them this "true up" deal. This is just a pre-lawsuit bargain - they pay a lot less than they would pay if there were a court judgement, you get your money now. Sounds fair and reasonable to me.
If companies don't want to face this risk, they can use open source software. Oh, it costs them more to have an in house programmer staff to customize the software for their needs? (since open source stuff tends to be a bit rough around the edges) Then pay the damn commercial license fees, and buy a few more than you need just to be on the safe side.
Re: Ok, so how should it work? (Score:2, Insightful)
The open source business model works just fine. Companies like IBM and Redhat use it with no problem. The source is open and free, but they make money by selling complete systems and providing support. Those things are valuable enough to businesses to pay for. There are a lot of corporate contributions to open source software as as result. It's in the interests of those businesses to maximize the quality of the software so more people purchase support and enterprise systems.
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Yes, but for companies who steal commercial software, how else SHOULD it work?
Companies who have the choice of paid open source, free open source, and commercial software still extremely frequently choose commercial. Must be a reason.
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If you demand an audit and the results of the audit find that your accusations were false, the court should be making you pay for the costs of the audit...
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Not see what is unfair or unjust about this. The "hardball" tactic described here is to find companies that are stealing software, and offer them this "true up" deal.
Except in many cases, that isn't at all how it works.
Someone will send an anonymous "tip" that a company is using unlicensed software. Often this is a disgruntled employee or ex-employee. Hell, BSA has been running ad campaigns on Facebook for a while now encouraging people to report companies in exchange for the possibility of a small reward.
The software companies (Or BSA on their behalf) will start hassling the reported companies, whether or not it is true. This leads to either a voluntary audit of their
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Except in many cases, that isn't at all how it works.
Someone will send an anonymous "tip" that a company is using unlicensed software. Often this is a disgruntled employee or ex-employee. Hell, BSA has been running ad campaigns on Facebook for a while now encouraging people to report companies in exchange for the possibility of a small reward.
The software companies (Or BSA on their behalf) will start hassling the reported companies, whether or not it is true. This leads to either a voluntary audit of their licenses (Which still costs quite a bit in time and effort) or legal action. Every instance I've heard of companies going through with the voluntary audit has had the companies threatened with having trivial, honest mistakes punished with large fines and legal action. It's a losing proposition for them, even if they've done nothing wrong, or have small technical issues with their licensing that they've made a good faith effort to have in compliance.
It is a complete shakedown.
It wasn't like that in my experience 15 years ago. I was a disgruntled employee, I sent an anonymous tip to BSA.org, but nobody showed up at my company.
Re:Ok, so how should it work? (Score:4, Insightful)
> I'll tell you what they do - they let you correct "trivial, honest mistakes"
You're correct. I made a trivial, honest mistake on my taxes one year. They sent a form showing the correct calculation, and a bill for the difference, and I paid it. End of story.
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The difference plus interest, but otherwise, yes.
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As such, I've had plenty of people freak out because when talking to me they realized they are using a few more seats than they have licenses for. As an example, licensed for 800 seats, but using 835. It just goes in the notes that 835 are in use so any techies working with them know what they have to look at.
On the other hand, if you get situations where someb
It's a trap (Score:5, Interesting)
While much of the software used in my workplace has some very annoying licence management software to punish the honest, it at least does not trap people by letting them go into non-compliance so the legal vultures can come in and feast.
If your software allows 835 seats when you are only allowed 800 it's either a deliberate trap or incompetence on the part of the vendor or whoever they have bought their licence management software from.
If seat 801 can start up then someone on the vendor side has fucked up, or it's a trap.
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That would be laughed out of court (Score:2)
I'm not a fan of restrictive commercial software but I don't see a circumstance where your excuse would hold water with the vendor. If you haven't paid for it and the condition for using it is paying for it - th
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The nicest setup allows 801 (and by that I mean *legally* allows), but notifies you that you've got seven days grace, after which you'll only be able to run 800. If you want to maintain access to these extra licenses, click here / phone this number and have a chat with the vendor.
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It wouldn't be so bad if they could tell you exactly how many of what license you need and then not change their minds during a disruptive audit. It's quite hard to guess what licenses they may require you to have from day to day.
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Then buy a boxed copy of each unit of software and tape the unique license keys to each computer using it. I'm just saying, if you really want to be above reproach, you can do this. Try to pinch pennies and get exactly the bare minimum licenses you need? Well, this is a risk you take.
Re:Ok, so how should it work? (Score:4, Interesting)
Then buy a boxed copy of each unit of software and tape the unique license keys to each computer using it.
You'd think it would be that easy, except it isn't. Microsoft will not accept the unique license keys as proof of you having a valid license. That includes the Windows license sticker that's affixed to your computer, or the license key that's printed on the software. All this is is the certificate of authenticity, which verifies that it is a genuine copy of the software. It does not show that you have a license to use that software.
Proof of the license comes in the form of proof of purchase from a valid reseller, who in turn must have proof that they purchased it from a valid distributor. If your reseller sold you an invalid licensed copy, you're on the hook for that. It is up to you to provide valid documentation that the license is valid and was purchased from an authorized reseller.
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Above and beyond what AC said, you can also get in trouble if you install any web based services or similar.
Re:Ok, so how should it work? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's far from a "make pirates pay up", it's "make everyone who does a rolling stop or goes 1MPH over pay a 4-digit fine".
Laches (Score:2)
Could the software vendor just lock down the features you didn't pay for? Sure, but then they wouldn't get to sue your ass off when they discover you've been using a feature you didn't pay for.
Intentionally delaying legal action is called "laches" and can limit the damages that a plaintiff can collect.
Re:Ok, so how should it work? (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't a company using software illegally.
Isn't that exactly what is is though?
This is Microsoft going after their small business customers that can't afford to pay the legal fees and threatening them with legal action just for the hell of it.
I've been audited by microsoft; it took a couple hours to fill out. They asked a few follow up questions and were satisfied and went away. It wasn't a big deal because I had documentation. I mean, you do maintain a software inventory right? You know where your licenses are right? You do actually have enough licenses right?
So that you know you are in compliance with your license agreement right?
The only way I'd "true up" is if I knew the audit would find a lot of non-compliance's... and then truing up, like the other poster said... its sort of like an out of court settlement. I don't acknowledge any wrong doing for what I was doing, they get some extra money, we sort of agree how to square things off... end of story.
But I don't need to true up because I'm clean. If they want to do a more thorough audit themselves, they're welcome to have at it. It's their money to burn.
Re:Ok, so how should it work? (Score:5, Informative)
I took a look at it, it had dozens of pages of things unrelated to the actual licences including questions about the number of android, mac and linux devices. I decided that it was a very offensive fishing expedition and marketing exercise and that I had no desire to ever be in the situation where they could legally inflict this upon me. so I told them the licences were not current and not in use so I was not their customer - several times, and eventually they stopped contacting me.
It was a whole lot more than just sending them details of current licences (of which I had none) and clearly was designed as a combination of shakedown and very intrusive marketing information aquisition.
So it's not just about satisfying them that you have current licences, they want to know about what else you have from other vendors, number of employees, company income etc which is none of their business.
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including questions about the number of android, mac and linux devices
If you are using them to access a windows or exchange server resources for example, and you are using device CALs then they need CALs. So its not completely irrelevant.
So it's not just about satisfying them that you have current licences, they want to know about what else you have from other vendors, number of employees, company income etc which is none of their business.
number of employees is a barometer on whether you have enough CALs etc. but go ahead and leave it blank. not every question is relevant to every product. its like a tax audit... there's lot schedules that only really apply if you are claiming a specific deduction.
You can leave them blank if they aren't relevant to the licensing you are using.
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There were questions about phones - zero relevance apart from marketing purposes.
Smartphones that access server resources need CALs.
IP phones that integrate with AD / Exchange and use unified communications features etc need CALs.
If you are using device cals, you can run into needing cals for this.
If you are using user cals than you don't, but then the questions about how many employees you have become relevant.
I cannot recall how many pages of questions since I gave up in anger even flicking through the first 20
It was an attempted shakedown.
Of course it was. The guy probably has quotas to meet too.
BUT that doesn't mean the audit was somehow unreasonable. You did agree to them as part of your VLA license.
And as other posters have mentioned, there is a lot of grey area; I prefer to avoid it myself as much as possible. But if you are organized and in control of your network, you should be on solid ground arguing with them.
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On a product unused for more than twelve years and twelve years since the licence expired? No - such obligations ended in 2000 when the licences expired. They don't get to own your soul forever kids. It works both ways, if you are not permitted to use their product beyond a certain date then they are not permitted to inflict extra obligations on you beyond that date.
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On a product unused for more than twelve years and twelve years since the licence expired?
Agreed. If you aren't using anything then you aren't auditable. I'm not arguing otherwise.
And sit through a time consuming marketing exercise after revealing a lot of information that should be confidential?
Nevertheless, it is what an active VLA user has agreed to. Its a bit naive to think they'd never exercise these terms.
The only way to win is not to play.
Sometimes yes. Other times no. Perfect is the enemy of good. And using MS products is often the quickest and most efficient solution to the problem at hand. Sometimes even Oracle is the right move.
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At this point I'm arguing against their audit methods such as overstepping reasonable bounds and not their products. :)
IMHO however their complex scheme requiring a CAL for a users phone in addition to their computer just to check email is yet another of the long list of reasons why MS Exchange is very well named - trade it in for something else
When I saw an "MS licensing for Dummies" book a few years ago I though
Re:Ok, so how should it work? (Score:5, Insightful)
Surprise! We unilaterally changed the EULA terms (paragraph 69 lets us do that). Because of reports of loading issues, running our software on 1 gigabit or faster networks requires a mandatory subscription to our Premier-III support tier. Also, an Intel "hyperthread" now counts as a full core. You can still run on a virtualized host, but only using virtualization software we've vetted and approved for use (surprise! There's only one, and it's our own).
Are you clean now? Didn't think so. Enjoy the shakedo^H^H^H^H^H^H^Haudit.
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Oracle, is that you?
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No, you can perfectly legally buy your licenses today and then a year later be out of compliance with another internal, parallel licensing scheme without you changing anything. Microsoft then claims you're doing something illegal and it's cheaper for you to pay up than to fight it.
Even internally Microsoft has no clue what licensing scheme is correct, you get as many answers as people you ask and when audits come along, it's typically whatever is more expensive.
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It's not a cherry picked version, and dictionary.com *DOES* not apply to legal definitions.
English common law has centuries of precidence that you only steal something if you "have the intention to permanently deprive". As you cannot permanently deprive someone of a copy of piece of software by making a copy it is not legally theft, and never will be. That's why it is under a whole bunch of different statutes and is called "copyright infringement". You will never see a competent lawyer file a court action c
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I've had items stolen from me. What bothered me was that I didn't have them any more, not that someone else had them. If you copy software from me, I still have the software. I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying that it is not stealing or theft.
I fail to see why we should use 5-year-olds to determine the meaning of words. Being an adult and knowledgeable about English, copying the homework is plagiarism. Don't feel bad about it; I didn't know nearly as much about the language I speak when I was 5 e
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I fail to see why we should use 5-year-olds to determine the meaning of words.
I use common parlance, and stealing and theft are are commonly used to mean taking possession of something that isn't yours.
"He stole my idea", "She stole my place in line", etc.
Language is about communication, and in these cases, the word steal or theft is clearly understood by all parties. In fact, it's *so* well understood, that even a 5 year old understands it. There's not a lot of subtlety to what is meant by theft and it c
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Except that the moral responsibility is different. If you steal something from me, I don't have it. If you infringe on my copyright, I suffer no immediate loss, and in many circumstances I suffer no loss at all. I'm not defending copyright infringement here, and I rarely do it, but something that does direct harm is different from something that doesn't.
"He stole my idea." This implies that I had an idea, and someone else exploited it in a way that prevented me from doing so. At least arguably direc
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I'll fully agree with almost everything you're saying, but "he stole my place in line" is perfectly valid usage - everybody knows what is meant, and it's definitely a light wrong, but stealing is the right term.
And yes, the software/media companies are of course intent on making copying akin to murder. But that doesn't mean the reverse is just hunky dory. I expect companies to lack a strong moral compass. I expect better of people.
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Look, your at war with pretty much the entire English speaking world here.
"He stole my place in line."
"He stole second base."
"They stole my idea."
Look, I understand that you're upset that people use "steal" to mean taking what is owned by someone else. But quite frankly, "steal" communicates perfectly well what is happening to both speaker and listener. I know its an affront that people are communicating in a manner you don't approve of, but it's one of those tragedies of life that one has to learn to end
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And no doubt you the next time someone tells you that they ran for the bus, you can point out that they weren't running, it was really more a trot.
When everyone understands what's occurring, standing on semantics inevitably means a clear agenda.
And yes, I'd be rolling my eyes at the industry calling piracy "software murder" or the like. Is there anyone who doesn't consider piracy = supporting terrorism ridiculous?
But companies are soulless entities who do not command my respect. From human beings, I expec
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Sure, it's theft, in the same way someone brushing past you is assault. You're now so far down the scale of seriousness that it's pretty much not worth the word as it's usually used.
Thanks, Adobe (Score:5, Interesting)
The only audit I ever ran into came from Adobe, and it was for some product that I had signed off on the requisition for someone who ended up never using it anyway, but it was still my job to track down the original P.O. Not a huge deal, but it was a waste of a few hours along with accompanying anxiety. My solution to prevent a recurrence in the future: I will never approve a requisition for any product from Adobe ever again.
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"if you stop paying their software stops allowing you to update or modify your work, but allows you to view and export essentially all of your data"
FTFY
Don't forget VMware. (Score:2)
VMware has a software audit clause in all their license agreements, all the way down to the VMware Player.
Don't use VMware; It's just not worth it.
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That's one of the reasons I switched to VirtualBox. The other reason was that VMWare pushed me to a new version that would not work on my upgraded Mac unless I paid again to upgrade the VMWare license. It's been on the shelf ever since :-)
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I think VMware is actually pretty generous with their licensing terms. I don't think their licensing is *inexpensive*. But every fresh install of VMware and most major version upgrades (eg, 5.5 to 6) enable ALL features for something like 60 days. And AFAIK, they don't do any phoning home for license verification.
A common license used in SMB is their Essentials Plus, which doesn't give you storage vMotion. Many is the time where a customer has upgraded storage/servers and versions simultaneously and I
Two words: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ernie Ball [cnet.com]
Microsoft (Score:2)
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the most minute workstation licenses
I don't understand what that means. Was the OS on that workstation licensed, or not? Is that more or less of a license than the one needed on another (bigger?) workstation?
Phony FUD story. (Score:2)
Re: Phony FUD story. (Score:2, Informative)
I agree.
But, having done many myself, what actually happens is that the Chef will try charging you for 6 sandwiches. You will say, hey, look, I only got 3. And he will say, prove it. So you have to measure your feces to prove it is only the weight 3 sandwiches would produce. He will then reply, maybe you are constipated, so that isn't proof. You then take a laxative, and show him that your bowels were empty, and indeed only received 3 sandwiches. He will then agree over the phone, and send you an upda
I was once an Oracle "guru" (Score:5, Interesting)
Then there were the prices themselves. I deployed quite a number of systems and could never predict the price. Would it be $30,000 or $300,000.
Then there were the end runs. Once Oracle got ahold of your client they were perfectly happy to see you swapped out and replaced with another consultancy who would slather the entire client with Oracle products. It was bordering on Oracle Doorbell for all your ding-dong needs.
There is no way I would ever use a solution that results in a company like that able to mess with my clients. No Microsoft, no Oracle, no IBM, or SAP.
My favourite is when I have a client who is in the process of throwing them out and they ask, "What will it cost to licence MariaDB." Then when they ask, "Can it handle our Enterprise database?" I will say, "Your $400,000 system has 40,000 rows of data in it. A $25 raspberry Pi could handle your needs." Then they ask about per seat licensing costs. "None." At this point I can see them fishing around in their heads for how they are going to be screwed; suddenly it dawns on them that the screwing is now over. They then go through a list of features that they have built up over time but couldn't afford. When they get the quote for those they pretty much throw up in disgust at how badly they had been treated over the years.
When they put it all together they realise that their previous consultant hadn't been working for them but effectively for a company like Oracle.
It has been over a decade since I dumped everything Oracle and will never go back.
Re:I was once an Oracle "guru" (Score:5, Interesting)
We have been using Oracle (legally) for 15 years, but are in the process of switching to Postgres. Postgres has been such a breath of fresh air after Oracle that we keep asking ourselves why we didn't do this years ago?! I have tons of experience with Oracle, but I honestly can't understand why 99% of Oracles current uses can't use Postgres.
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The few times I ever called Oracle were disappointments, and pretty much all my support was from google searches. With MariaDB, Postgres, etc my support is from google sear
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Postgres wasn't very good 15 years ago.
It's a great solution now tho -- it's come a long way.
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My favourite is when I have a client who is in the process of throwing them out and they ask, "What will it cost to licence MariaDB." Then when they ask, "Can it handle our Enterprise database?" I will say, "Your $400,000 system has 40,000 rows of data in it. A $25 raspberry Pi could handle your needs." Then they ask about per seat licensing costs. "None." At this point I can see them fishing around in their heads for how they are going to be screwed; suddenly it dawns on them that the screwing is now over. They then go through a list of features that they have built up over time but couldn't afford. When they get the quote for those they pretty much throw up in disgust at how badly they had been treated over the years.
I'll bet it feels really good to help a client like that switch.
Just say no (Score:2, Interesting)
An attorney told me that those audit clauses in contracts are effectively unenforceable and you should just refuse to let them audit you.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Well that's a relief (Score:2)
When I first saw the title of this article, I thought it might be about software vendors auditing their software for bugs and deficiencies. Silly me! Of course, bugs and deficiencies don't matter - the legal small print has all that covered. No liability, whatever happens.
No, the software audits are all about customers paying full whack for every single copy of the software - whether it works or not.
How often is this used for workplace revenge? (Score:2)
If you assume that many organizations violate software licenses for a variety of reasons -- either outright dishonesty, poor record keeping or something else -- I wonder how often this gets used for workplace revenge by disgruntled employees?
I would expect the dishonest employer factor and the disgruntled employee factor to correlate pretty well.