🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <6512@mindlink.bc.ca>, Rick_McCormack@mindlink.bc.ca (Rick McCormack) writes...
>SPAudit by Mr. Mora will serve a useful purpose within many companies, and may
>even help the "lowly" worker in getting the programs s/he needs.  i worked as

Of course, anything is possible, but there are many better ways to ask
your organization to fork over to buy the right tool.  This was a nice
example, but it's a little far-fetched.  The employee with the bootleg
program is going to go to the supervisor and suggest that they better
buy the bootleg because somebody might conduct a SPAudit?  It seems to 
me that this puts an administrator in the position of resorting to
a stern "We don't engage in software piracy."-lecture, at best.  This might
even make it more difficult to request the software through legitimate
channels.

Speaking as one who has often gone to great lengths to promote the 
Macintosh and to recommend particular software packages, I don't find
any of the "silver-lining" scenarios offered in defense of auditing to
be very convincing.  I may be a "faith-in-human-nature" extremist:  
in 1986 I decided that I couldn't without a Mac at work so I lugged 
mine into the lab where it sat unmolested in an unlocked room for about 
six months, logging experimental data with registered copies of 
Scott Watson's Red Ryder and Don Brown's "MockChart".

Mine wasn't the first Mac at work, but people liked what they saw
from the Mac-using minority and now the whole Engineering department
is Mac-based.  The IIcis running LabView make my Red Ryder/RS-232
data-logging setup look like a toy.

It's easy to forget the engineering and customer service values 
that make your product successful when someone drops a memo on 
your desk claiming that they've discovered that X% of the copies 
of your latest program are unpaid for ... it sounds like free money, 
and by all means it is justifiably yours.

Still, it doesn't always benefit one's business in the long run
to try to soak up every last dime.  Include a "personalization"
feature and display the username and the registration number in
a splash-screen at start-up.  That's easy enough.  Use copy-protection
if you feel that people won't be able to resist pirating.  The sort of
people who are inconsiderate enough to steal a personalized copy 
and use it won't stop pirating even if they are caught by a SPAudit.  
They'll run from floppies ... and use their bit-copiers to grab 
the CP stuff.

>Mr. Mora's program isn't a "search and destroy" type of thing; it is an
>auditing tool to assist in determining which programs are being used, so that

That's true, and moreover, it only looks for programs that are
on the SPA list.   No messing with your copy of Adventure or
those PD utilities that you can't live without, but can't explain
to Fred, either.  It's far better for somebody like Matt to write 
a SPAudit than a person with less concern about privacy rights.
He seems to have done the best that one possibly could with a
a nasty job.

Nevertheless, I respectfully disagree with Pete Gontier of 
Kiwi Software who wrote to endorse SPAudit from the perspective 
of the small developer.  In my experience, audits lead to approved
lists, and approved lists hurt the little guy.  Sometimes the list
even prevents you from buying the Mac in the first place.

The alternative is for SPA to stick to advertisments reminding
people that software is intellectual property which must be 
paid for according to the terms set by it's owner.  Those ads
are constructive and deserve our support.

These audits -- whether initiated by the honest employee or by
the accusation of the disgruntled employee -- just create ill
will and an atmosphere of mistrust that will hurt the industry
more than it will help.  It's easier to sell 100 new copies
of a program by satisfying customers than it is to catch 
a hundred pirates and sue for damages.

SPA will do what it damn well pleases, to suit the wishes of
the companies that pay dues and make contributions.  If you are
a company and don't want to see SPA increasing the "auditing"
and legal side of their operation, please consider withholding
your contribution to SPA.  If you are a systems administrator
or Macintosh-buyer, please make your opinions known.

I am convinced that this move will do little but increase the
size of the SPA legal staff, which will inevitably sop up most
of their self-legislated penalty fees.   Bureaucracy never shrinks
of its own accord;  some would argue that bureaucrats and lawyers
occur spontaneously whereever there is money to be made from
human conflict.  Please, let's not make this any easier for them.

Invest in creating better software, and beware the pencil-pusher
who tells you that he can make more money for you without extra
work.  They are either misguided or have something to gain out
of it themselves ... or BOTH at the same time.

-- Bill (johnston@minnie.me.udel.edu)