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Ground control to Major Trial

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Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#161

Post by JoblessWonder »

axus wrote: post #106
o_m wrote: post #39

At my last job (a billion dollar company) someone had set up some kind of proxy where one free user account was used by ~100 employees. We wanted some more features they didn't offer so we looked at some of their competitors. I was in the meeting where we were going to decide to keep using what we had or use the better solution (in my opinion). Both were presented fairly except for the price. The plan was to continue…

How much money did they save over 5-10 years through this illegal or unethical behavior? If "Rocket Company" averaged 30 machines per month, max $1600 per month let's say $600k / year before discount. Maybe kept 3 million dollars over 10 years. I imagine the only way Vates will get paid for their service is if control is taken from the operational groups doing the actual work and "abstracted" to a centralized IT grou…

FYI they said "hundreds of physical hosts" so it is significantly more than that.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#162

Post by MarkusQ »

neilv wrote: post #142

Assuming this telling is pretty accurate, I'm wondering what the thinking was on both ends. On the freeloader end: Did they think they were within the rules? How far up was the approval to keep doing it this way? Did someone try to pay, but get blocked? Did someone tell their boss they did this all in-house, and now doesn't want to admit they outsourced and exposed the company? Did it go to the top, and a lawyer told…

For all of the above, the answer is probably shaped something like this:

https://250bpm.substack.com/p/accountability-sinks

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#163

Post by [deleted] »

1234letshaveatw wrote: post #88
plam503711 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m actually considering reaching out directly to the CEO and telling the full story. But honestly? There’s a good chance he’s fully aware — and totally fine with it. That’s part of what makes it so disappointing. We’re not rushing into legal action — it’s not worth the energy for now — but publicly calling out the behavior felt necessary. It also sends a message to others in the ecosystem about the kind of nonsense…

I very much doubt the CEO is aware. It is much more likely that some person is doing this because that is what they have always done- they are coasting. Alternatively, it is some poor sap that is in over their head and just following some instructions the original jerk put together to keep things running. The CEO will prob hand you off to some director who is going to be annoyed that they were made out to look foolis…

[deleted]

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#164

Post by krisoft »

threeseed wrote: post #130
Edman274 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't do anything legally threatening, then you make it that much harder for every single OSS vendor to make money, because the precedent is getting established that there is no penalty for breaking the rules. When I was a teenager I would do super cut-rate work on computers for people, and my father did helpfully point out that undercharging for valuable work just makes it harder for people whose day job is t…

> Threatening legal action costs nothing It costs your reputation as a vendor which is permanent. You don't threaten legal action against companies before calmly advising them of the situation.

> It costs your reputation as a vendor which is permanent.

You say that as if that is some bad thing. As a vendor you want to have a reputation for asking what you are fairly owed. The other option is to have a reputation for being a wet tissue anyone can walk through.

> You don't threaten legal action against companies before calmly advising them of the situation.

These are not incompatible with each other. Of course you calmly advise the company of the situation. 100%. You tell them that their 15 day trial period lapsed at and that they continue using the without proper license in place. You tell them where they can reach out to find the right licence for their needs. And you tell them that you intend to pursue them for damages if they remain out of compliance. All very calmly and professionally. Nobody is angry with anyone here. There is no bad blood. It is just a contracting oopsie!

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#165

Post by Kikawala »

bmacho wrote: post #155
plam503711 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m actually considering reaching out directly to the CEO and telling the full story. But honestly? There’s a good chance he’s fully aware — and totally fine with it. That’s part of what makes it so disappointing. We’re not rushing into legal action — it’s not worth the energy for now — but publicly calling out the behavior felt necessary. It also sends a message to others in the ecosystem about the kind of nonsense…

> We’re not rushing into legal action — it’s not worth the energy for now — but publicly calling out the behavior felt necessary. Wth. Why go public instead of just .. emailing them, and asking for payment?

They did reach out.

So we reached out.

They vaguely apologized and claimed they’d switch to using the source version instead.

Which — fine. Not ideal, but technically within the rules. What stung more was their complete disinterest in any kind of professional support — even when we simply brought up the idea of a volume discount (!). They shut it down immediately. Apparently, sending satellites into orbit is easier than entertaining the thought of paying for open source support.

And did they actually switch to the source?

Of course not.

They just kept going — now using personal Outlook addresses and incrementing the email handles like they were running a script.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#166

Post by krisoft »

The most concerning part in this article is this: "To me, that’s a pretty blatant breach of the unwritten “moral contract” of Open Source."

It talks about the breach of some unwritten contract. But surely they should have a very written, real world contract to describe the terms of that 15 day trial. And this should be a breach of that. The fact that this is not mentioned, or even entertained as a notion is concerning.

Moral contracts are good for philosophy discussions. Real contracts are much better when you need to use instruments of law to get someone to something.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#167

Post by cruffle_duffle »

rideontime wrote: post #72
funki wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What tipped you off? (I'm not a native speaker either)

There's a certain sort of "snarkiness" that's very easy to spot. There's a convicted scammer named Craig Wright (long story) who uses ChatGPT to write long, smug essays on X which have the exact same sort of tone, complete with the weird florid analogies. > Hard to say if it was a mistake, a flex, or just their way of making sure we didn’t miss who was milking the trials. > It’s tested. It updates with a single click…

ChatGPT loves to do that artificial, inauthentic snark thing with me. Its style and tone are reflective of its reinforcement training.

I’d assert that unless it was specifically trained on my writing style, it is almost impossible to “prompt away” the tone it uses.

And that is the thing about authentic snark, it is crisp and edgy and unique. But LLM’s are trained in a way that would average out millions of different “snarks” so all of the attributes that make snark work go away.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#169

Post by elorm »

axus wrote: post #106
o_m wrote: post #39

At my last job (a billion dollar company) someone had set up some kind of proxy where one free user account was used by ~100 employees. We wanted some more features they didn't offer so we looked at some of their competitors. I was in the meeting where we were going to decide to keep using what we had or use the better solution (in my opinion). Both were presented fairly except for the price. The plan was to continue…

How much money did they save over 5-10 years through this illegal or unethical behavior? If "Rocket Company" averaged 30 machines per month, max $1600 per month let's say $600k / year before discount. Maybe kept 3 million dollars over 10 years. I imagine the only way Vates will get paid for their service is if control is taken from the operational groups doing the actual work and "abstracted" to a centralized IT grou…

They run 4000 VMS as a stingy aerospace company so you can definitely assume less than a 100 physical machines.

Without further enterprise negotiations, it's 1800 per host/year. $180k max.

I don't blame Vates for refusing to chase down the company. They'll bring you way more pain as paying clients than the shameless theft they're perpetuating.

Re: Ground control to Major Trial

#170

Post by walterbell »

mrbluecoat wrote: post #104
hiatus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Based on issuer identification number?

As one example, Oracle Cloud's Free Tier sign-up prevents any type of virtual card.

Oracle could productize a Trial Filter.. powered by Oracle Lawyers™.
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