Desktop·25,135 discussions

Open source or illegal file sharing?

Locked

I don’t see what is the big deal? I know IT professionals that really get all foamy at the mouth when you talk bad about open source, (by the way I love the idea of open source) but if they see you make an unlicensed copy of an application or OS, they get all squeamish. My point is this I feel they are just jealous because they are all programmers the only way they can play with an OS or application is if it is open source. Whereas me being a techie hardware guy can get all my thrills from justmaking a copy ( licensed for my own professional personal use of course). The way I see it I am just helping the knowledge pool of the hardware professionals. I was wondering what the other IT professionals out here thought?

Topic

Copies and lawyers

In reply to Open source or illegal file sharing?

In some places unlicensed copies of operating systems and applications can lead to cases of lawyers and employment termination with cause.

If your legal department says ‘no unlicensed copies’ and your boss says ‘no unlicensed copies’ then you better obey them.

On the other hand, if your boss says to make unlicensed copies, you might want to get the command in writing, with e-mails where you warn that the organization could get into trouble if caught. If the boss insists upon making unlicensed copies, prepare to jump ship while ramping up for the installations.

What you do after that depends upon your ethics and personality. But if you make sure that you did everything you could to avoid unlicensed copies, there is a distant chance that your boss would be completely responsible for those copies. This is where the evidence you collected would be essential.

[Author]

Replies