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From: johnston@minnie.me.udel.edu (Bill Johnston)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps,comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: All Commercial Software Developers or Companies (pls read)
Message-ID: <56971@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Date: 23 Jun 91 01:47:51 GMT
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In article <25662@unix.SRI.COM> mxmora@sri-unix.sri.com (Matt Mora) writes:
>P.S. Please no flames about how you hate this program already. If
>people (or companies) didn't steal software there wouldn't be a need for
>this program.

Sorry, Matt.  This is a flame;  and no, I haven't seen SPAudit yet,
so it's going to be a flame of the worst sort:  biased and uninformed.

(This is not personal;  it's getting harder and harder to come up with
a unique software concept.  I do think it's a pity that the muse cursed
you with this one.)

Some background:  "SPA" stands for the "SoftWare Publishers Association".  
I think it's fair to characterize them as an organization that promotes
an "activist" approach to dealing with the problem of software piracy.

To be a bit less fair,  I would also characterize them as an industry
"hit squad" who look after the interests of the big software houses.
I don't know who pays their electric bill, but I haven't heard of any
small-time developer who has kicked in $$ for SPA.

From the description offered by Mr. Mora, SPAudit seems to be software 
tool designed to facilitate corporate software-witch-hunts.  In other
words, a convenience for the person whose happy task is to skulk through 
the office after hours and document the contents of everyone's hard disk
for comparison against the corporate 'master list'.

Will this put another nickel in the pocket of ANYBODY in the software
industry?  The answer is no, it will not.  But let's take a look at 
an imaginary scenario, so we can see what is likely to happen, and who
is likely to be the beneficiary ( aside from Mr. Mora, of course ).

Enter "smilin' Fred".  (You know Fred, don't you?  The computer support
"expert" down in the MIS department who was so helpful when you had
that problem getting MacTCP to work with the new network setup?  
Sure, he was the guy that answered your question by offering to check 
to make sure that you hadn't "messed up" your CONFIG.SYS file ...).  

Yeah, that's Fred.  He doesn't like Macs, and he hates answering
questions about them.  (He doesn't get many ... because "Macs aren't 
for experts, anyway").  But over Fred's objections some misguided
upper-management type approved the purchase of a few Macs, and things
are getting out of hand.  People like these machines, and they like to
do things in their own way.  Why, just last week he had to fix an
AppleTalk problem over in Publications and he noticed that somebody's
disk was full of files whose name ended in ".cpt".  A few people were
clustered around another Mac chuckling at a screen saver with fishes
swimming back and forth.   Nancy's machine has a folder called 
"Public" that is full of _unapproved_ software that Fred has never 
heard of ... and apparently everybody in the office has access to it,
but Fred can't remember approving the purchase of a file server.

His head is spinning ... is it a virus threat? ... are we going to
be sued for having bootleg software?   To add insult to injury, 
one of the _women_ in the office tried to tell him how to fix the 
network ... and she was right!  What can Fred do to regain control 
of this horrible situation?                             

Well, Mr. Mora, I think we just found you a customer.

I could go on with the story about Fred (my apologies to Freds 
everywhere, by the way) but you already know what Fred is going
to do when he finds that ad for "SPAudit" that ran in INFOworld
and "controlFREAK Week".    ... Well, why not finish the story?

Fred buys SPAudit and a few weeks later everybody gets a memo 
from Fred's boss announcing that from now on the "approved" 
software list will be enforced;  "flagrant offenders" like Nancy 
(who didn't even know what was in her Public folder) get a list 
of the illicit software that was found on her machine which BELONGS 
to XYZ, Inc.... along with a stern warning not to let it happen again.

Notice what Fred didn't do:

1)  He didn't offer to help the person with the hard disk full of 
".cpt" files to get a purchase order approved so that XYZ Corp.
could continue to use Bill Goodman's "Compact Pro" legitimately.

2)  He didn't offer to buy a work-copy of WriteNow for the office
heretic who doesn't like MS Word.  (They won't even listen to his
protest that he bought the software himself;  it's NOT ON THE LIST!)

3)  He didn't bother to find out that Nancy's "Public Folder" 
network was freeware and full of other perfectly legitimate and 
useful public domain software.

So, who benefits from SPAudit ... besides Mr. Mora?  Could it be
the companies who front the money for SPA?  The ones who are on 
"THE LIST"?   I think you know the answer ...

-- Bill (johnston@minnie.me.udel.edu)
-- 38 Chambers St.; Newark, DE 19711; (302)368-1949