Author Topic: Keysight is upping their game with software license agreements  (Read 8658 times)

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Offline PlainName

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Re: Keysight is upping their game with software license agreements
« Reply #50 on: February 11, 2019, 09:35:37 pm »
Either way, it was the 60s where it all started to go wrong. Damn hippies and dropouts, only puddings they ate had special ingredients..
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Keysight is upping their game with software license agreements
« Reply #51 on: February 11, 2019, 09:43:39 pm »
That ngram viewer is a great timewaster! Check out British English, where it's mostly the correct way, and American English, where it's mostly the wrong way. You can see who doesn't understand what they're saying.

And check out French. They're exclusively with the Brits on this. As are the Germans. Hmmm, maybe we should be sticking together...
 

Offline IanMacdonald

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Re: Keysight is upping their game with software license agreements
« Reply #52 on: February 11, 2019, 10:01:57 pm »
This has been discussed at length on IT sites. Basically, the issue is that firms will pay up for software licenses rather and adhere to conditions of use which are probably unenforceable, rather than face a costly legal battle.

The only basis to software licensing is copyright Law, and this has a well-defined remit of allowing the creator of a work to control copying and public performance of that work.  The copying aspect is fairly clear, though it is not so clear as to what constitutes public performance of software, if anything does.

Even so, it is hard to see how this allows for restrictions on the number of users who can access a server, for example. In that case no part of the server software is being copied or performed. Another contentious issue is that of OEM software which (ostensibly) cannot be transferred to another computer.  If a HD containing Windows is transferred from a failed computer to a replacement, then the OS software is not even copied, so it's hard to see how a copyright violation could possibly arise.  :-//

I'm told that the reason the vendors get away with making these outside-of-remit restrictions is simply that no-one has challenged them at Law. If they were challenged, or the threat of a challenge arose, they would probably just back down, because a judgement going against them would likely set a precedent making all restrictions outside the literal scope of copyright Law illegal. That would have massive consequences for the likes of server OS vendors, who could then only charge for installed instances of the OS itself, regardless of the number of user connections. I'd love to see that happen.  :popcorn:

In the case of test equipment, a lot of what goes on would be classed as crippleware if it were done on computers. Especially, equipment being sold with features which are intentionally disabled even though the controls for these features are on the front panel and look as if they ought to work. It seems that labs have simply accepted this situation without protest, whereas computer users rallied against it when it was tried on them, and largely got it outlawed.  :box:
 

Online TheSteveTopic starter

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Re: Keysight is upping their game with software license agreements
« Reply #53 on: February 11, 2019, 10:44:04 pm »
Sorry to be off-topic, but this needs to be zonked before it become (meaningless) common usage:

Quote
Again: the proof is in the pudding.

The correct quote, and meaning, is "The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

Should be self-explanatory: pudding isn't proof of anything; eating it shows whether it is good or bad.

You're welcome :)

All of you have proven is that this forum could use additional moderation.
VE7FM
 
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Offline tooki

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Re: Keysight is upping their game with software license agreements
« Reply #54 on: February 12, 2019, 12:03:18 am »
Sorry to burst your bubble, dunkemhigh, but (to quote the sage Austin Powers), “that train has sailed...”. “The proof is in the pudding” has been used since the 1920s.

dunkemhigh still has the majority on his side:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=proof+is+in+the+pudding%2Cpudding+is+in+the+eating&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=17&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cproof%20is%20in%20the%20pudding%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cpudding%20is%20in%20the%20eating%3B%2Cc0

But let's revisit this 10 years from now...  ;)
Plus, that’s not a fully representative sample of common language use. You’d need to also look at spoken speech patterns, etc.
 

Offline ebastler

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Re: Keysight is upping their game with software license agreements
« Reply #55 on: February 12, 2019, 05:37:16 am »
All of you have proven is that this forum could use additional moderation.

As General Chat discussions go, I think this little digression was just fine... ;)
 

Offline Simon

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Re: Keysight is upping their game with software license agreements
« Reply #56 on: February 12, 2019, 07:46:41 am »
Let's try to stay vaguely on topic.
 

Offline ejeffrey

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Re: Keysight is upping their game with software license agreements
« Reply #57 on: February 12, 2019, 05:21:49 pm »
I wonder what defence contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Marshall's aerospace do?

Keysight: Can we audit your software and test equipment.

Defence contractor: No way. We can't allow a third party access to our restricted network, unless they're working on one of the projects and have signed the official secrets act.

Keysight: Then we'll revoke all your licences and take you to court.

Defence contractor: Good luck with that one!

We ran into that issue renewing our ADS license a big back.  They added the audit terms and our legal team wouldn't sign off on it because it is obviously insane.  It took several months (while keysight kept issuing free temporary licenses) and they got it removed from our contract.  I assume defense contractors deal with this all the time, and don't have any problem getting those terms changed.  I could only wish keysight (and other software vendors) did cost-benefit analysis on this sort of thing -- I can't imagine that they claw back much if any revenue from these terms, but it cost them 10s of thousands of dollars in lost licensing costs for us alone, plus the time their lawyers spent arguing back and forth about obviously unenforceable license terms.

It isn't just big stupid companies.  My university in grad school had a standard clause in their terms of business that any vendor they work with gives the university the right to do a complete financial audit of their entire company.  Most people ignored it, but a few companies called BS, and the university wouldn't accept language that said the university could audit their records only related to the transaction.  One supplier we worked with ended up forming a shell corp that just acted as a distributor, which the university was fine with.
 

Offline GilbouFR

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Re: Keysight is upping their game with software license agreements
« Reply #58 on: February 18, 2019, 10:23:38 pm »
Software licenses, like laws, no one respects them if they are too complicated, or restrictive.
Most ULA (User License Agreements) are obscure, complex, almost unreadable unless you are lawyer and most of them do contain illegal items.
The golden rule is do not try to F your customers. Because they won't forget ever.
 


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