[nzlug] Linux in NZ District Councils?

[Carlos Hendson]

cr wrote:
>>> How about this (in a memo from the chief IT moron in the company I
>>> work for):"As a responsible corporate citizen, XXXX Ltd will not
>>> permit shareware or freeware to be used on its systems".     wtf?
>> As soon as you see your work computer as an office tool rather than an
>> extesion of your home playing/surfing environment, then you will
>> understand his position better.

There are a significant differences between shareware/freeware licensing 
and GPL and licenses of that nature (open source vs closed source).

In my experience, there are enough companies out there, large and small, 
that exploit shareware/freeware by downloading and using the software 
without ever registering it or paying for it (WinZIP being a clear 
winner).  Which is effectively theft.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#freeware

> And no, I don't understand how being a 'responsible citizen' requires the 
> payment of huge sums of (other people's) money to overseas software 
> corporations when far cheaper alternatives exist - which was the point I was 
> making, in case it escaped you.   In any other department, that would count 
> as almost criminal financial negligence.

Generally speaking business decision makers think of computing in terms 
of Return on Investment (RoI) vs Risk.  I realise the software you've 
used as an example doesn't have a significant investment cost, but the 
decision must still be made.  Ultimately, your company's IT decision 
maker has chosen against shareware/freeware.

Most people conceive large corporate software vendors as low business 
risk.  That's why corporates pay huge dollars in licensing and support. 
  That's the theory, of course, what transpires in reality between a 
company and a software vendor is another story.

> (I do see my office PC as a work tool, and I can say that for work purposes, 
> the basic graphics software in Win XP absolutely sucks when compared with, 
> say, Irfanview.    I won't go into details, but trying (for example) to select 
> a section of an air photo, enlarge it and print it out at the required size 
> on a page is a saga of horrendous proportions.   With Irfanview it used to 
> take 10 seconds.

I took a quick look at Irfanview's web page ... 
http://www.irfanview.com/main_what_is_engl.htm

<snip>
USAGE AGREEMENT

IrfanView is provided as freeware, but only for private, non-commercial 
use (that means at home).
</snip>

Had this software been used at the office, the company would have been 
in breech of the license.

The fact that nothing would have happened because the chances of the 
Bosnia based author attempting to sue a New Zealand based firm is quite 
slim, it is still not, to quote the IT moron, the behaviour of a 
"responsible citizen".

> Technically, you're right, but in this instance this individual doesn't 
> know the difference between shareware, freeware and GPL - he equates them all 
> as the same thing.
> 
> I don't think the list needs your self-righteous superiority, either.

It's sad that this person is unclear on the difference between 
shareware/freeware and GPL.  Perhaps you could send him the above GNU 
url to help clear up his confusion.

At least that way, you may be able to get Mozilla Firefox back on your 
desktop.

Hope that helpful,

Carlos