13

I work for a very large fortune 500 company who is subcontracted to another fortune 500 company on a DoD contract. As you can guess the red tape is tremendous to do anything.

We have simply shared a VM that is loaded up with Microsoft dev tools from someone elses MSDN subscription. When I have questioned our MSDN licensing, each time I was always told it is in the works. This has been going on for over a year now.

We also have other products that we are using that have a 30 day trial. One developer found an exploit to extend the 30 day trial infinitely, this approach has been encouraged by our management while they get the licensing "worked".

I have contacted 4 levels of managers on this program. No tangible action in over a year now.

What should I do? Report them to Microsoft and the other appropriate software vendors? Contact my companies ethics hotline? STFU and go with the flow?

Thanks

Ixrec
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3 Answers3

7

At the end of the day, you need to understand that you are not responsibile for your employers actions when it comes to licensing. If they force you to use unlicensed software and they get audited for their software, it will come down on them, not you. It's their problem, and probably isn't a battle worth fighting.

George
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6

In Fortune 500 companies there is often a Master Contract with a vendor like Microsoft that licenses the software in bulk to the company but the internal politics, budgets, product assignment and accounting procedures can hinder distribution internally for years. In other words your company likely has paid for the appropriate licenses but simply has not installed the products correctly. Until you know the dimensions of the Master Contract it is a wise idea not to make too much of an issue. Unless of course, you are a compliance officer and its your job to make an issue of these sorts of things.

kloucks
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5

Given the size of the companies involved, the left hand may not know what the right hand is doing. I think I would notify the ethics office since they should be in a position to bring the two hands together. As others have stated this could very well be a site licensing issue.

Having worked in the software field for long enough I try to make sure software vendors are compensated for the products I use.

Jeff
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