Software Licensing and Sanity (was Re: Moving from SCO to Suse Linux)

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Fri, Jul 30, 2004 at 06:42:30AM -0400, John Esak wrote:
> > As for the first comment, can I inquire as to why you consider filePro or
> > BackupEdge the whole OS...the car rather than the accessories?  I don't
> > follow your logic, so I can't even debate it further without
> > clarification.
> 
> The analogy has fallen apart. Cars, radios, etc. I was trying to show that
> your analogy was inadequate or misled in the first place. Let's keep it at
> software. The simple truth is if you buy software and open it... it's yours.

In fact, this is nearly *never* true.

You look at your paperwork for almost any piece of osftware you own,
John.  You didn't buy the software.  You bought *a license to use the
software*.

They do this precisely so that they have a legal leg to stand on to
attempt to enforce a "License Agreement": if they just let you buy it,
they would have no right to tell you what you could do with it.

> I hate analogies... but a better, closer one would be. Go into a store, buy
> a CD of Duran Durn. Copy it. Bring it back and say you really meant to get
> the DVD of the video of the first song on the CD... They give it to you and
> take back the CD (yeah, that will happen... :-)  Then you copy the DVD and
> bring it back to say, Heck, I meant I really wanted the new mpeg version of
> it all for your new ipod-like Real Networks player... They take back the DVD
> and give you a napster credit card to get the download.... Do you see any of
> this happening? Do you see any reason for it??

In fact, there was a movement amongst the record labels, themselves (or
so I was told; I'd have to find a reference), to go to just such a
license instead of purchase model -- I was laughing my head off when I
thought about how much trouble they'd be getting themselves in:

"I have a license to this album's music.  So, since I accidentally
melted the CD in the car, I'll just get a friend to burn a copy.  Since
it's a licensed product, they don't care what media I have it on..."

The terms of a license are *critical* on this sort of thing, but they
tend to be contracts of adhesion: record labels (and software producers)
are monopolies WRT *the thing you want to buy*, so they can enforce
almost any terms on you they please.

> When someone buys *and this is important* and _uses_  a software product on
> a particular platform... then claims after some time, say a year, say more
> like three years, that they are moving to new hardware and wanting to switch
> to a newer version of that software on the new hardware... there is NO
> reason, incentive, obligation, ethic or anything else compelling the company
> to either give them that new software as a trade-in or trade-up... reduced
> price, etc. The user has gotten the use of the product (to sound redundant)
> already... they are going to get more use out of the new one... and the
> possibility exists that the old server is going to keep working with the old
> software as well.

See below.

>                      All this combines to make it very reasonable, that
> changing platforms should cost full price. It's open, you bought it. I agree
> with this and expect it, because it is fair to the company writing and
> selling the software... yes, even one making a product called OneGate.

Who said "newer version"?  I'll even deal with finding the binaries for
my current version for the new platform myself if they don't want to be
bothered.

I'm not asking for *more* or *newer* functionality.

I'm merely asking for the vendor not to nail me down WRT product that
isn't even their responsibility in the first place.  They would have no
problems letting me continue to run the package if I didn't {want,have}
to change OSs, and they support the new one, so I *really* can't see
any justification at all for them wanting to treat a platform-to-platform
license transfer as a new sale.  And I'm clearly not alone.

Anyone who's gonna run it illegally on more than one machine is going
to do that anyway, regardless.  Good, upstanding, moral businesspeople
who are violating license agreements are *almost* always doing it
because the license agreements are stupid, and bad business.

It's been proven over and over again that if you don't shaft your
customers, in general, they won't shaft you.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a screed, John, but it's clear that
you're basing your argument on assumptions that a) none of the rest of
us are and b) I don't think are valid or pertinent to the situation and
customer base at hand.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
Designer                          Baylink                             RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates        The Things I Think                        '87 e24
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	"You know: I'm a fan of photosynthesis as much as the next guy,
	but if God merely wanted us to smell the flowers, he wouldn't 
	have invented a 3GHz microprocessor and a 3D graphics board."
					-- Luke Girardi