[PLUG] The lion in Salem

[Cliff Wells]

On Tue, 2003-08-26 at 11:38, Ken Barber wrote:
> On Tuesday 26 August 2003 08:08, david pool wrote:

> > Obviously, if they are
> > running un-registered proprietary software, well, that would be
> > worth mentioning.
> 
> I can guarantee you that any software the State of Oregon is 
> running is 100% legal.  They employ more people than you can 
> imagine (at our expense, of course) just to ensure license 
> compliance. 

This is not a good guarantee.  The State is a large entity encompassing
many disparate agencies and I can assure you that unlicensed software is
almost magical in it's ability to propogate.  I seriously doubt
server-side software (Exchange, IIS, etc) would be unlicensed, but
things like MS Office have a tendency to get widely deployed even
without licenses.  More frequently things like Office *Pro* tend to get
deployed where only a standard license was purchased.  OTOH, the State
is also fond of site-licensing which protects them in most cases.

>  The bureaucratic paperwork involved in installing 
> one simple piece of software on a State computer is... uh, 
> interesting.

Which make unlicensed copies (which don't require paperwork) all the
more appealing ;)

Regards,

-- 
Cliff Wells, Software Engineer
Logiplex Corporation (www.logiplex.net)
(503) 978-6726  (800) 735-0555