BSA explains its ethos
Published: 03 Aug 2004 14:45 BST
Let's say I'm an IT manager at a small business, and I've got 27 projects vying for my attention. Why should auditing and keeping track of software licenses be a priority?
Unfortunately, there are a lot of issues out there, to the point where software-licensing compliance often drops off the corporate checklist. It's important for us to break through some of that noise with examples of what it might cost a company if they don't manage their licences.
I think the answer lies in the fact that there are serious legal consequences. And there are a number of practical reasons for companies to make sure their software is properly managed. If you don't have a compliance program in place, you increase the risk of installing virus-ridden software or software that doesn't work as intended, and you lose a lot of benefits as far as technical support.
So is your advice to just make tracking licences part of somebody's job?
Absolutely. Most of the companies we end up contacting are not bad companies. They do most things right; they're honest companies. They just need to treat this issue more seriously. It's almost always the case that the reason the company has this kind of problem is not bad record-keeping or a deliberate attempt to cut corners -- it's just inattention to the issue.
Some would say it's also because software licenses are so darn complicated nobody can keep track of what they're supposed to be doing.
I'm a lawyer, and I'm sympathetic to people who say some of these licences are difficult to understand. But there's often no ambiguity in that one paragraph that sets out your right to install and use that software on a limited number of computers. In those cases where companies take a single copy of a software program and install it on all their computers, it's not because of confusion over the terms of the licence agreement.
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