I have great admiration for Sterling Ball, CEO of Ernie Ball, for breaking the silence concerning enforcement actions. He over came the feelings of shame and humiliation, that we've been told we're supposed to feel when confronted with an enforcement event, to tell the world about his company’s software non-compliance experience. Enforcement actions are much more prevalent than we think. Smaller companies are more vulnerable to enforcement actions, although some very large companies in the San Francisco Bay Area have been hit. Reported companies are not alone. Only an estimated 10% of enforcement actions are publicized.
As illustrated in the Ernie Ball enforcement experience in 2002, people don’t fully understand what really constitutes software compliance. See Ernie Ball's Breaking All the Rules, by Lara L. Sowinski. As long as a commercially licensed application, or any .exe of an application, is installed on a computer a license purchase is required, even if the application is not used. And, make sure all .exes are removed when removing an application from a computer. A good practice is to reformat computers before they are reassigned.
Although moving to Open Source Software (OSS) may not be for everyone, Sterling Ball found a treasure chest of opportunity for his company in the midst of adversity. He converted to OSS. See Rockin' on without Microsoft, by David Becker. Choosing OSS does not negate the necessity of monitoring for software compliance. Andrew M. St. Laurent's book, Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing, will be very helpful for those utilizing Open Source applications.
