On 12/29/05, Snake <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Everything MS related has grey areas, but at the end of the day they don't > come to everyones house and checkup on you, many people and companies abuse > those grey areas. I can tell you that a HUGE number of people buy the Action > Pack for personal use anyway.
And Microsoft knows it. But at $250,000/violation here in the US, software piracy can destroy a small or mid-sized company. I've quit jobs over blatant software license abuse (e.g. 28 processors of SQL Server running and 4 processor of licenses). Having seen it in person, there's nothing like a small company that suddenly grows, goes public, and finds out that there's 150 unlicensed Office Pro installs, multiple "development" licenses of MS-SQL being used in production, and miscellaneous "I'll just install Bob's copy of Photoshop" issues to straighten out. > "for use at your primary business location" > If you are self employed and work from home then it's not for personal use > anyway is it as that is your primary business location. Glad to hear you're a laywer :) Since it's coming up on tax time, defining the primary business location is an interesting exercise left to the reader. I'd think twice about putting a copy of WinXP from ActionPack on a box you use solely for gaming and doing family finance -- hard to justify that when the jackboot thugs knock on your door ;) > It makes me laugh when people preach about things like this, while they are > themselves almost certainly sitting there with software installed on their > computer that shouldn't be. That's one primary reason I've gone the open source route when I've been faced with the alternative of looking at the true costs of license compliance. Why deal with Winzip and being out of license when you can use 7zip without concern? Don't like 7zip? Then pony up for Winzip. I actually know where my licenses are, how many I have for what, and the details of how the open source licenses I work with interact. One of the first things I do when I work with a new company is help them with a license audit to find all the things that they've installed that are illegal. Installed that single copy of CF on 4 servers? Got 3 installations of SQL-Server? Helping businesses understand the real costs of their choices is an important part of the business/technical interface. A $5k project to convert to MySQL looks a lot better compared to purchasing 5k/processor licenses for your two quad-proc pentium pro servers sitting out there in production. Or it makes you appreciate what your technology really *does* cost. > Just give people the information and let them do with it as they want. No > need to preach, leave that to the bible bashers. Useful to give people *all* the information --- consequences as well as benefits. Snake suggested that there's nothing stopping you using Action Pack for personal use -- that needed a little correcting. A lot of folks weren't worried about sharing music online. Take a look at how folks fighting RIAA lawsuits have faired (not well). Me, I listen to internet radio instead :) -- John Paul Ashenfelter CTO/Transitionpoint (blog) http://www.ashenfelter.com (email) [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Logware (www.logware.us): a new and convenient web-based time tracking application. Start tracking and documenting hours spent on a project or with a client with Logware today. Try it for free with a 15 day trial account. http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=67 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:227882 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
