A Life Without Licensed Software

This morning I saw this interesting post regarding a guy who change all his company’s software to Open Source thanks to the BSA. He change all the software in just 6 months and according to him everything goes great. Here is part of the post.

Ernie Ball is a leading manufacturer of guitar strings. According to this news report on MSN: “In 2000, the Business Software Alliance conducted a raid and subsequent audit of the company that turned up a few dozen unlicensed copies of programs. Ball settled for $65,000, plus $35,000 in legal fees. But by then, the BSA, a trade group that helps enforce copyrights and licensing provisions for major business software makers, had put the company on the evening news and featured it in regional ads warning other businesses to monitor their software licenses.”

That’s when Sterling Ball, the CEO of the company, decided to fight back. He completely renounced Microsoft products in one fell swoop. 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.”

How did he come to be the target of the BSA? The BSA had a program at the time called “Nail Your Boss,” in which they encouraged disgruntled employees to report software problems. According to Ball, the BSA “basically shut us down…We were out of compliance I figure by about 8 percent (out of 72 desktops).”

And how did they get out of compliance? Here’s Sterling Ball’s explanation: “We pass our old computers down. The guys in engineering need a new PC, so they get one and we pass theirs on to somebody doing clerical work. Well, if you don’t wipe the hard drive on that PC, that’s a violation. Even if they can tell a piece of software isn’t being used, it’s still a violation if it’s on that hard drive.”

To continue reading this interesting post go to Ernie The Attorney Blog.