Mail Archives: opendos/2000/10/31/06:07:26
There are definitely not to many Mr. Nice Guys out there anymore.
Bill Gates is so paranoid, and has been since his early days
with the old Basic tapes, (when he walked in to the PC Users
Group meeting in San Jose and threw a tantrum because some of the members
were giving away copies of his paper tape Basic program, and he
wanted $15 for them) that he has gotten together with most of the
big software companies to more or less standardize all software
licenses. I believe he was also the main man behind getting the
"Software Police" setup, where they can get a rumor from a
disgruntled employee, and then go into a company site
and shut down the complete business operation while they
inventory each and every pc, server and workstation for installed
software. If you cannot show proof of license for all your software
they can fine large amounts for each piece of software. They eve
threatened to shut down the US Military on several bases. When I
was working for the Us Navy we had to keep track of each computer
on the base with current location and log of each piece of software
on the machine, and pull spot inspections at least once each 6 months
to make sure that there were no personal programs, or shareware, or
non-reported software on any of the computers. When you have up to
5,000 pcs and are subject to $50,000 dollar fines for each piece of
unauthorized software, it can put you out of business real fast.
I have read some licenses that allowed you to give the software to
another individual as long as you notified the software company of the
transfer, and transferred all the books, disks, and copies to the new
user, but in a large company they usually buy licenses for a certain
number of users and the IT Office has to keep track of each installation
and remove or install each application where and when needed. They
only get Master CD's for the software and they may or not get any books
for the users. It is then up to the company to train it's people and
keep
track of the licenses.
I am sure they would love to get in to each and every home PC but, just
last year, there was a kibosh put on the software they had installed in
Windows which allowed them to look into your PC whenever you went
looking for an upgrade for software, and inventory all your software to
check for registered copies. Most people think that is an invasion of
privacy, and I am sure a lot of people have never registered their
software
anyway, because they think it will never be a problem.
Maybe, someday, we'll all just get along together.
Until then, remember Kentucky Fried Computers had to change their name to
North Star and then there was IBMC or Itty Bitty Machine Company.
Once Bill Gates was asked to dress up and he said "I can't wear Armani
suits.
Steve Jobs wears Armani suits."
BOB 'DOMAN' MOSS "Chocolate is a vitamin"
On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 10:52:21 -0000 "Ben A L Jemmett"
<ben DOT jemmett AT ukonline DOT co DOT uk> writes:
> > You are not authorized to do any
> > modifications to the software or change the package in any way, by
> adding
> > to or deleting from what came in the box. (You can only do that if
> you
> > wrote the software or they sell you the copyright, which they are
> not
> > stupid enough to do.)
> > You can't copy and give away or sell any disks nor
> > any documentation that you recieved with the package and it is
> serialized
> > so they will always know who it is registered to.
> How things have changed since the good old days of DRI's licenses...
> My
> licenses for GEM/2 and DOS Plus say 'you may use the SOFTWARE on one
> computer, and make up to three (3) backup copies in human or
> machine-readable form. You may merge the SOFTWARE into any other
> program,
> and this counts as use of the original SOFTWARE. You may transfer
> the
> SOFTWARE to another party, provided the other party agrees to be
> bound by
> the terms of this LICENSE, and that you destroy all other copies of
> the
> SOFTWARE in original or merged form.' or words to that effect. The
> IBM
> licenses have for Writing Assistant and DisplayWrite Assistant say
> the same
> thing - you can give it to someone else, as long as you give them
> all of it
> and keep none of it, and you can modify the software as you want but
> it's
> still covered by their license.
>
> Regards,
> Ben A L Jemmett.
> (http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ben.jemmett/, http://www.deltasoft.com/)
>
>
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