Fishing License

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Wed, 10 May 2006, Guy Fraser wrote:

> On Tue, 2006-09-05 at 09:22 +0100, Andy Green wrote:
> > Just something to point people at in your organization who did not
> > see the benefits of a FOSS solution yet.  Reliance on proprietary
> > software opens up an ugly licensing liability problem and
> > Microsoft are actively [1] using it to harass and shake down
> > companies.

> > AWC was contacted several weeks ago by Janet Lawless, a software
> > asset management engagement manager at Microsoft, who claimed that
> > "a preliminary review of [AWC's software licensing] information
> > indicates that your company may not be licensed properly." Lawless
> > urged AWC to "understand that the potential inconsistency in
> > licensing is an urgent matter and needs immediate attention." She
> > wanted to send a consultant to AWC to conduct an inventory of its
> > installed software.

i apologize if i'm coming late to this thread and this has already
been covered, but what exactly does it mean when someone from MS calls
up and claims that they've done a "preliminary review" of your
licensing info which indicates that "your company may not be licensed
properly."

what does that mean?  how would they know?  i would think that it's
MS's obligation to prove your guilt and not yours to prove your
innocence so i can't imagine any legal basis for MS demanding the
right to wander in and start doing an audit.  so with what data does
MS claim that you might not be in compliance?  has anyone addressed
this?

rday