Lindy Mayfield asks > Would you agree, though, that mainframe users tend much more to be legal > than personal users?
I would say that practically all large customers are about as legal as they can possibly be and that there are strong external factors that drive them to behave that way. SOX here and corporate legal/accounting restrictions in many overseas markets make it fairly unlikely that customers in typical "western world" jurisdictions will intentionally stiff their providers. Accidental discrepancies are another matter, but overall I don't see it as a huge black hole sucking money out of the business. Of course I don't have anything to do with how licensing is done, so my opinion is irrelevant. I'd love to see a hobbyist license for many things, but they are extremely unlikely to show up any time soon (if at all) <SNIP> Interesting, it has been found that companies, publicly held, that have done things to defeat the usage limitations of a product. Specifically, a usage based license is offered. So these entities obtained a usage based license and then they figure out a way to violate the license. It was only by an audit that they were caught. They found a way to interfere with the product so they were able to run as many copies as they wanted. They didn't prevent SMF records from being written, they actually intefered with the product. Mind you, they wanted a usage based license, then they found a way to violate the terms of the license. There are other companies that I've worked for as a sysprog under contract. They are not as fastidious about mainframe software licenses as you might think. They are actually more afraid of a Microsoft software audit than any other platform. So if I, as a contractor, will not violate the contract, they will have one of their people take over the install... What this means is, SOX, and all the others (USofA or outside) can all be explained away -- you actually have a contract, but the terms are being violated. So please, complain all you want about keys and the like. The problems caused by some few cause a PIA for everyone (including developers who have to figure out how to put that "asset protection" code into a product). To the patent issue: Patents are OK as long as they are for new technical development and not business processes. Again, not for new implementation of an old idea -- things done with CICS or IMS DB/DC now done using IE. That just kinda fails the obviousness test from where I sit. But having been in a court on an IP case opened my eyes to the amount of abuse of the patent process, and I think in many cases because it is known that the US PTO won't even know how to challenge them. Regards, Steve Thompson ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
