On Fri, April 25, 2008 10:23 am, Nicholas Wheeler wrote: >> The BSA has been known to show up with the local Sherrif in tow to >> enforce >> a court-ordered audit. >> >> -ajb > > > Does the BSA pay for the costs associated with an audit?
The court costs are usually paid by the suspect company in a settlement. The cost to your company for an audit? That probably depends on how the lawsuit ends. You could always do a Sterling Ball and pay your fines, immediately switch to non-MS products and tout open source whenever you can. <http://www.news.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html> Or can they > just arbitrarily come to any company suspected of using open source > software(non-Microsoft), and audit them (thus costing the company a > significant amount of money)? Arbitrarily? No. After convincing a judge? Yes. A favorite tactic in the past used to be to claim discovery on a bunch of things, wait for the target company to miss the deadline/ignore the summons, and then call in the Sheriff. > Also, can "we" (anyone) set up an alliance, and get the sheriff to > back us up when we enter companies using microsoft products, and audit > all of their software... seeking for violations to the GPL? Sure, if you have the legal backing to do so. The Sheriff in this case is enforcing court orders, so if you get a judge to go along with it, you're good to go. -ajb -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
