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Goober Writer [mailto:gooberwriter -at- yahoo -dot- com]
> Um, are you sayign that software audits are a *bad
> thing*? It sure sounds like it. If a company cannot
> keep track of its inventory, especially where
> licensing is an issue, then it serves them right to
> have to pay a fine for not keeping track. When you buy
> and install software, you agree to a license
> agreement, which dictates how many copies you are
> allowed to install and in what ways you can install
> and use them. If a company buys 100 licanses of
> something, hands the discs out to its employees and
> tells them to install as needed, and doesn't track the
> installations or the media, then yes, they are to
> fault for not adhering to the EULA. It doesn't get any
> more basic than that.
On the other hand, Goob, you appear to have supplied another
very good reason to use free software, wherever possible.
The question is whether the incidental costs of using the
free OS and the free apps would be less than the bureaucracy
costs plus the capital costs of pay-for software.
A few years ago, I would have said that the headaches of
getting a working office out of (say) Linux would have
been prohibitive, making Windows and MS-Office and other
closed-source apps cost-effective.
Today, I think the real costs of implementing Linux on the
desktop (it's already in a lot of server rooms) is lower,
just based on how easy it has been to do stuff with SuSE 8.2
and RH 9. Not effortless, but no onerous learning curve
for desktop users anymore. Yes, there's a learning curve for
IT people, but they are usually a small fraction of a
company's payroll, and it's the nature of their jobs to be
constantly learning how to make stuff work... not unlike
our jobs.
That said, I still haven't replaced FrameMaker for my core
work, but I'm using OpenOffice every day, and my co-workers
have not noticed that documents are going back and forth
between Word and OpenOffice Writer, nor that my presentations
are done in OOo Impress, nor that their spreadsheets have been
through OOo Calc and back a few times. That means that I can
boot into *either* Windows or Linux and get roughly half my
work done. If I get time, I'll investigate whether FrameMaker
can be run from Linux, via Wine, and that'll be that.
The IT dept had looked at switching to Linux a couple of years
ago, then backed off when Uncle Bill relaxed some of his more
onerous upgrade and licensing requirements. However, due to the
costs of audits and other things, they are re-visiting the
possibility. In the meantime, Linux desktop stuff has improved
nicely, so things are looking up.
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