What point piracy?

[dalecosp]

No, it's not another Yarr! thread...

I enter the homes or offices of clients often (when new clients, at least) where it seems that someone else has done something questionable. Running AVG antivirus (the free version) in a commercial setting, for example. Or maybe they've 7 Windows computers, but only 4 have labels and there's only two "old books" with the license on 'em ... so where's the 7th license?

Today I saw a new client and they had 3 Winboxen. Two had (apparently) come with Office on them (though I didn't ask for proof), and the 3rd appeared to have Office 2003 installed, but only the Access (DB) module ... Word, Outlook, Excel and friends "were not available in this installation..."

The box was built by a major player in the US OEM market, and it seemed unusual that they would ship Office with most of the components disabled. My guess: someone else (they've had other consultants in, quite obviously) has installed some software they shouldn't have.

What are your feelings on this? How do you (if you do this kind of work ... small time consultantcy, etc.) handle this? I'm sure they would be willing to pay for one more (legitimate) copy of the stuff if it's no cost-prohibitive ... but why in the world didn't they make sure in the first place?

Any thoughts welcome ... sane or otherwise :D

[planetsim]

well depending on the company most of the time they just dont know (or better put executes, bosses etc dont want to know). Basically they look at who can deliver the cheaper option and without questions asked they grab them and get it done as quickly as possible and as cheaply as possible.

I will admit a lot dont know mainly because no one has the patience especially with Windows to read the EULA, i know ive only managed two lines before i feel asleep.

Ok if you want to help them of course money is the worlds best incentive :p, id tell them exactly what they have done, what needs to be done and what will happen if they dont do it. Normally they would be so scared especially using M$ stuff thatd they listen to the first person and take them no matter what you charge (ok well maybe not but id at least try :D)

[AstroTeg]

Its a judgement call. What is the purprose of your visit? What level of trust do they have with you?

When I was a network consultant, I saw this all the time. All you really can do is tell them "Hey, I noticed this and it doesn't seem right. Do you have a license for it? If not, it could really cause you some problems. If you like, for $X I can purchase it and install it for you." At this point, if you know some good BSA war stories, now is the time to share them. Once they hear they can be shut down for 5 days and then finded a 5 digit number or more, they'll think about the 3 or 4 digit number they may have spend to get updated as a good deal.

After that, the other option is to take them to the BSA. Although this may cause you some problems. If they figure out it was you who reported them, you can probably consider your consulting relationship with them over. Otherwise, the BSA will bleed them for their money and they won't have any left to pay you for your work (although this depends on your timing - maybe report them to the BSA AFTER your project is over).

Again, its a judgement call. If things are super ugly there, you might have them sign a document that says YOU informed them they were out of sync with their licenses and you informed them of the problem (maybe signing a paper is too much, an email might work too). Either way, you may want some proof that you did your part and informed them of their problem.

[drawmack]

When I've run into this I do up a formal recommendation that includes a full license check. There are two places to sign by each item on the recommendation one to accept and one for deny. Then if they deny it my ass is covered so I really don't care. I've informed them so morally I'm okay, but it is there ass and not mine so it's not really worth my time to try and convince them of something they don't think they need.